


Of Monsters & Vampires

by DayDreamingAni



Category: Southern Vampire Mysteries - Charlaine Harris, True Blood (TV)
Genre: Demon Fae, Demon Magic, Demons, Eric Northman has a heart, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fuck Alan Ball, Godric is Sad, HATE SOOKIE, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, Love Troupe, Mythical Beings & Creatures, No Timeline, Not Canon Compliant, OFC is Latina and Proud of it, OFC not a good person, Pamela's in it for the fun, Slow Burn, This is seriously just an excuse to fall in love with Eric again, Vampires falling in love, Varying depictions of Violence, i am god here, original demon characters - Freeform, somewhat of a slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-04 22:21:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16798189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DayDreamingAni/pseuds/DayDreamingAni
Summary: Half the time, she thinks she's made of fire and brimstone and not flesh and blood. Rage boils in her more than anything else it makes her feel like she's less human than those around her. It makes her feel like she isn't normal.But then, she knows she isn't normal like them. Normal people didn't hear voices in there heads. Normal people didn't read other peoples minds. So she takes that thing, that otherness in her blood, and she feds it because when life hands you lemons you fucking used them before they rot.*~*She's a telepath, but she's nothing like Sookie. She's different, she's darker, she's meaner. She's quick to hit and quicker to spill blood than Sookie ever was. There's a lot that separates them. Almost like they're two entirely different breeds of animals.*~*This is the story of how a telepath with a bad past finds herself shackled to one vampire sheriff and his childe. This is the story of how she falls in love with him and he in turn with her. This is the story of how they had to maybe kill a few people and bury them down low before they ever admitted it out loud.





	1. Danger, Danger, Drainer

* * *

When people looked at her they were often times hit by the magnificence that was her sheer and utter wild beauty. After all, she really was just that beautiful.

The soft shade of her caramel colored skin always shimmered like that of glimmering beach sand. Her curls, the richest shade of chocolate, were always brilliant and lush weaving down her back like endless pools of living silk. Her eyes, round and wide like a doe’s, were the clearest shade of amber one would ever find. Her lips, plush and naturally blood red, reminded an onlooker of a ripe apple ever ready for that first crisp bite.

In a word, she is beauty, incarnate. Everything, from the soft delicate slope of her nose, to the utterly lustful waves of her voluptuous body, she is gorgeous.

Everyone who ever has the pleasure of laying his or her eyes on her can tell you that. Anyone who crosses paths with her is always ready and willing to move out of her way for the simple fact that she smiles at them.

The sheer magnitude of her beauty is not lost on her. No, not at all.

Since she was only ten years old she realized, well, she wasn’t like other little girls. She was pretty and being pretty came with it’s privileges. From extra lunch money from other little boys to finding gifts scurried away in her cubbyhole. She realized very early on. Her beauty was the key to her success.

As a woman now, she wielded her beauty like a serrated edged knife. Her beauty—like that knife—went in smooth as silk, flesh giving way to the bell like laughter that bubbled out of her and the way her eyes sparkled in the moonlight. But after she got what she went in looking for, the jagged ends of her cool indifference and calculating ruthlessness tore meat from bone.

When the undead walked freely amongst those of the living, it was hardly a surprise to her. After all, she’s no stranger to magic. She was hardly surprised when laws and legislations were passed on account to how much money those dazzling corpses threw around.

Oh, and how much money they had.

Just as she had seen her beauty being that opportunity for success as a child, so did she see it again when vampire owned establishments were steadily on the rise.

Though, the thought of someone feeding on her, taking from her never did appeal to her. The thought of being someone’s, owned body and mind, sounded more like a punishment than some side perk. The prospect of being taken care of financially maybe sounded tempting but she saw prospects elsewhere.

Blood.

Not hers, of course, but theirs because with vampires came vampire blood. V, it turns out, is a very lucrative business. One vial of four milligrams sells for three hundred dollars. More if the blood comes from anyone over five hundred years old. With her Beauty, her Charm, and cold callousness, she is a wild success. She bleeds three dry in West Virginia before they even begin to suspect that she might have anything to do with it. After all, with her wide eyes, her beauty and her five foot five height she’s not even remotely on their radar.

Caught somewhere between Nevada, California and Arizona she gets wind of a high score. The tip comes by way of an article published in some trashy magazine. It’s a ranking of the best vampire owned establishments in the US. Right at the top of that list is known as Fangtasia. It’s not so much as the info about the bar that keeps her reading, but the information about the owner of said business.

Mr. Eric Northman was a vampire over a thousand years old. A vampire that had been—officially—hailed a genuine historical source for all things ‘Viking’ and utterly beloved by his beauty. His picture actually covers a two-page spread. With one good long hard look, she thinks the ink used was well worth it.

~X~

The next day she clears out her rented little bungalow and buys herself a first class ticket to Louisiana. It’s rare, she knows, to find a vampire that old so close. Old vampires aren’t generally in the US, she’s gathered in the two to three years the vampires have been out and about. Older Vampires, real ancient ones, they tend to go over seas where the culture is high and their money gets them more. The thought of one so nearby, in driving distance, makes her head rush.

Just one drop of his blood is likely to be well over five hundred dollars a pop. She wonders how much she can sell a vial for.

By the time she books herself a room in some swanky, over the top, expensive hotel in Shreveport she’s thrumming with excitement.

It doesn’t take her long to find the club because, as it turns out, the hotel * _‘La Noeud Rouge’_ was very much tailored to Vampire piqued clientele. With the aide of a town car, she finds herself at Fangtasia only a night after she’s flown in. When she takes in the size of the line she is hardly impressed. There are all manner of people here, young old, beautiful and ugly, all of them dressed in tacky faux leather and rubber outfits.

Without mercy she judges them in their gaudy attire and desperate attempts to woo the affections of some undead thing tonight. It’s a childish attempt that she’s tempted to laugh aloud. Primly, her deep maroon painted fingers flutter over the skintight material of her dress.

Tonight, she has chosen a less than subtle dress to attract attention to herself. She’s donned her most favorite cocktail dress that has never failed her. It is a thing made of silver silk, spaghetti straps and sin. The material, so delicate and expensive, both flows over her bountiful curves and hugs them all the same. It falls just over her knees with an overlapping skirt that barely hides the deep v cut along her right thigh.

She stands among the black veiled others like a peek of moonlight against an empty night sky.

Daintily, her fingers hover over her hair—perfectly arranged upon her head by a vine hair comb. The piece itself is gorgeously built to resemble **Mock-orange flowers and their leaves. All of which is crafted with diamonds and made up of silver. It matches the silver chain wrapped three times around her neck and the diamond studs in her ears. They are her insurance for though she has come to the club tonight, she has no intention of acting so soon.

Confidently she throws her shoulders back and makes way for the head of the line. Ignoring, without a glance back, the outraged shouts of those being passed. When she stands before the vampire manning the door she smiles slow and careful. Her eyes glittering all the while with excitement and anticipation. Those eyes of hers have never been denied a thing.

Tonight is no different.

The vampire—male, dark haired, brown eyed, ashen skinned—lays his upon her for a full of five seconds before he’s flashing a leering smile full of fang. The velvet red rope is quickly undone and she passes the threshold of the most coveted bar in the southern United States.

The first thing that greets her when she enters is the music. It plays overhead, nothing loud and over bearing, but loud enough to still drown out the majority of people’s conversations. It’s dark in the club, most of the walls painted black with everything else holding accents of rogue coloring. The lights hanging overhead are dimmed lending to a dark and mysterious atmosphere. On raised platforms there are dancers, both living and not, dressed dominatrix attire.

All of it lends to some kind of strange, dark world bending trip into a foreboding land. A land so far removed from reality she is overwhelmed by the feeling. It is nothing if not an actual passage into a realm of dark magic and monsters.

She is totally enthralled by it.

Quickly, she makes her way to the bar just off to the right of the entryway. It’s packed inside, as the article said it would be. Bodies dressed in black and red, move with the sinful beat of whatever type of music is on. With well-placed smiles and bashful eyes, she arrives without issue to the bar. In two minutes, a drink is in her hand curtsey of some admirer.

Though the ambiance and décor is a thing to be revered, her eyes make quick work of the club in total. She can spot, easily, at least five present vampires. Their deathly pallor effortlessly distinguishable from that of the cake faced masses. Two are up on the raised platforms, dancing around a shiny steel pole. One is stationed by the backrooms guarding—she thinks—the darkened hall that leads someplace her eyes cannot follow. The other two are circulating the club indulging the tourists that have somehow made it in and allowing them to snap some type of picture of them with their teeth bared and eyes gleaming.

At the far back of the club, raised upon another platform, sits an actual throne. A throne made of dark wrought iron. Engravings of some type of vine have been etched into it, symbols dark and powerful etched along the sidings. It makes for an intimidating image. A dark throne fit for some shadowy lord.

Briefly, she wonders if the great Northman even fit upon such a mammoth of a thing. She wonders if maybe he might not look ridiculously dwarfed by the absolute size of it.

After her third sweep, and eight turned down advances from some mortal nobody, she is about to call the night a wash. For it seems in that moment, that the highly coveted Viking Vampire is not holding court tonight.

And then, the guard who seems to be guarding a hall moves in the way only vampires can: in blur of movement. He flashes from his spot to a booth clear on the opposite side of where he had once been. A red liquid drink sits in his hand as if he had been there the whole night.

The once vacant black throne is suddenly occupied.

The need to wonder whether Mr. Northman was sufficiently large enough for that throne was now gone. Now she knew, Mr. Eric Northman was entirely large enough for that throne.

For there he sat, regally, upon that foreboding monolith. His golden hair falling in golden waves to his broad, broad, shoulders. The whole of his muscle toned torso put proudly on display by the black muscle shirt he wore. His dark washed jeans looked painted on over his thick muscular legs.

Just like his picture, he was stunning in a way that was absolutely supernatural. His features were strong, rugged in a manner that spoke of some European heritage. His jaw line was strong, his cheekbones sharp, his nose a noble line. Even from her seat at the bar, across the bar on the opposite side of that throne, she could make out his beauty clear as day. The half light that poured out from the lights at his booted feet lending to an ominous aura to him that she thinks might not be so far fetched.

After all, since he entered the main area of the club and seated himself upon his throne, the air has become heavy. Thick and weighted by some nameless power, the air in the bar suddenly feels both charged with energy and void of any warmth. Almost as if a predator has been let loose and some long since buried prey instinct has stirred awake in her in this very moment.

Never more is she sure she was not born right than in this very moment. For here and now those instincts to run, to hide and escape some faceless danger, are overridden by the thought of her possible recompenses. The rewards far outweighing the risks. The thought of his blood, so rich and thick with whatever magic keeps them alive long after their heart has ceased, making her untold millions gives her a rush of adrenaline.

Carefully, she finishes her drink keeping a watchful eye on her surroundings. She’s about to pay for her drinks and head back to the hotel when a haggard looking blonde appears from the back hall Mr. Northman has come from. What catches her attention is the very much out of place attire she dons. The other woman’s dirty blonde hair is pulled up into a lazy bun with little strands falling loosely around her face. She’s wearing a plain white tee and some faded jeans while a pair of worn down black flip-flops adorned her feet.

The difference between the blonde woman and the gathered masses is so jarring she is left staring as the woman comes near. Without a word, the man sitting to her right moves and allows the dirty blonde to take his seat. With a sigh the blonde rests her weight upon the bar.

For lack of anything else to do, and curiosity gnawing at her, she turns to the blonde and questions, “Hard day?”

The blonde offers a harsh bark of laughter before turning her sky blue gaze upon her, “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Try me,” she mutters as she waves down the bartender and in record time, a dry martini sits primly before her.

After subjecting her with a thorough glance from head to toe, the blonde relents with a sigh, “Juggling two jobs isn’t as easy as some would like to say.”

“Hey, at least it’s double the pay out, right?” she probes lightly as her mulls over the sight of the blonde woman.

There is something vaguely familiar about her, though, for the life of her, she cannot figure out why. She’s never laid eyes on this blonde woman before, she’s sure of it. Nothing in the soft round shape of her face strikes any chord in her. The delicate slope of her cupids bow doing little to jar any type of memory. The brilliant golden tanned shimmer leaves her blanking. Her heavy and thick as molasses Louisianan accent dispels any half formed remembrances almost immediately upon hearing her speak.

Nothing about this woman is vaguely familiar except…maybe…the _air_ about her?

Something in the very way the blonde woman breathes reminds her of her younger years and a handful of nights she’d rather leave buried and forgotten. Something in the delicate pinch between sandy blonde brows reminds her of a pair of tiny hands and frowning brown lips. Something about the blonde woman calls home to her. It leaves her feeling baffled and wrong footed.

“You’re new here,” the blonde suddenly announces as she pushes a wayward curl out of her face. A small curious expression falling over her radiant features as she goes on to say, “I’ve never seen you in here before.”

“Are you that much of a regular that you’d remember every face that comes and goes?” she questions lightly with a small smile and a laugh in her voice. Perhaps the woman worked here, but something like an alarm bell is ringing in the back of her mind letting her know there is some danger here that she does not see.

“What? No. I work here, this is my second job,” the blonde reveals.

At that she cannot help but allow herself a complete look of the woman seated beside her. She can see the appeal of the blonde. Large chested, wide hipped, tan skin, blonde hair, and blue eyed: she is a classic beauty. Of course there’d be at least one vampire here with taste like _that_.

“Oh, sorry,” she offers eventually with a small contrite smile that looked flawlessly genuine, “You’re dressed a little _differently_ than the rest of the workers here.”

“Ha, yeah, you can say that again. I’d rather eat wet sand than try to get myself into rubber cat suits!” the blonde exclaims with a deprecating laugh she hides into the back of her hand. With a shake of her head she turns and extends a hand to her, “I’m Sookie.”

Carefully, she slides her hand in hers and offers a practiced fake name, “Clara.”

The lie is told so easily and without hesitation it would pass even the best of lie detectors. And yet, somehow the blonde—Sookie—jerks in the handshake. As if she _knows_ , without any real reason, that she is lying. Suspicion flutters in those big round blue irises now as she withdraws her hand.

“Are you new in town,” Sookie asks through a strange smile.

It’s a half second of a pause that the question creates. A half second pause she passes off as a swirl of her drink. Steadily meeting Sookies gaze she smiles and begins her practiced lies, “Yeah, kind of. I just rolled in last night actually. I thought I’d come check out the night life here before heading back home.”

“Which is where?” Sookie questions, her brows furrowed and shoulders taut with tension. When the sound of her own question reaches her ears, Sookie eases back and offers with a small brittle smile, “Sorry, it’s just you’ve got a funny kinda accent.”

And Sookie here, she was shit at lying.

“A little bit of everywhere I suppose, I’m a bit of a drifter,” she says as casually as breathing before tacking on, “But California is where I’m staying at this time around.”

“Oh, California huh? I hear it’s beautiful out there,” Sookie mutters as a pensive expression comes upon her.

Shrugging her shoulders, she tells the girl as she places her empty martini upon the bar, “It is, but it’s not for everyone.”

“So you’re here on a trip for business or pleasure? Or?” Sookie allows the question to trail off, to hang so delicately as if to say she is only in passing interested. Though, she can read the clear hunger for the truth in her bright blue eyes.

At this, she wobbles her head before answering, “A little of both, to be honest.”

Which is the truth only it is much darker than Sookie will ever know. For her business was to drain a vampire and the pleasure would come after—when her pockets were lined with money and vials of blood.

Expertly, she bites back a smile that threatens to slide across her face at her macabre thoughts. It would do her very little to spook Sookie—the fang-banger she appeared to be—she would likely inform her Master of her suspicious nature. And if Sookie did that, well, it’d make things a hell of a lot harder for her to reach that money making blood.

A sharp gasp pulls her from her thoughts causing her eyes to snap up and over to Sookies wide eyed stare. Her plush rose-colored lips are open in a horrified ‘O’. A perfectly tanned hand is clutching the material of her chest. She makes for the picture perfect image of a shocked southern belle. Her skirts—had she had any—would be clutched in her left while a lace fan was pulled to her breast.

The sight is as funny as it is odd. For a moment, she sits confused. Her amber colored eyes glancing around momentarily as if trying to catch whatever it is Sookie might have been so completely shocked at. She finds nothing and no one who might have elicited that reaction from the woman.

She’s just shy of asking her if she’s alright before Sookie straightens herself back up and asks through a tight smile, “Did you travel here alone?”

Now there’s a dangerous question if ever there was one. Being in this line of profession has taught her some hard lessons and she is nothing if not a quick study. So she shakes her head, smiles, and lies, “No, I came with my Fiancé.”

At that, Sookie narrows her eyes as if able to smell the stink of a lie, “Oh, and are you expecting someone here?”

Suddenly, that predator prey instinct rears up again. Somehow, she gets the uncanny feeling that she is on the other end of a poorly led interrogation. Sookie doesn’t trust her and honestly it isn’t unfounded. They’re strangers seated at a bar, a vampire bar, that alone means it’s dangerous. But she’s done nothing to warrant this heavy gaze of suspicion. She’s answered all the probing questions with a smile and casual ease of a friendly plane passenger.

Nothing about her is imposing, distrustful or threatening.

Aside from her personal thoughts she is…

And that thought brings her up short because suddenly she understands that _air_ of familiarity. She understands now that it isn’t that she knows the girl, it’s that she knows what Sookie is.

With out effort she conjures up old defenses and prays they work for her as they once had back, back, in her younger years. She focuses hard on counting back from a thousand in 6’s while simultaneously trying to recall the order of Presidents.

It must work to keep Sookie well and truly out of her mind because a confused scrunch of her brows suddenly contorts her features. There’s a downward tilt of her frowning lips as she glares hard in her direction.

Smiling as radiantly as only she can, she slaps a twenty on the bar top and slides off the bar stool, “It was nice meeting you Sookie, but it’s getting late, see you around.”

“Wait,” Sookie all but shouts, her golden tanned hand reaching out for her cinnamon colored forearm.

Her grip is tight as a vice, the ends of her fingers digging in deep and dangerous as Sookie keeps her grounded in her spot, “You should stay.”

“I can’t, really. I need to be up early tomorrow, I have a business meeting come morning,” she lies with a strained smile as she stares at Sookies bruising grip.

For a moment she thinks Sookie will relent having run out of polite ways to get her to stay. Her eyes flash somewhere behind her and spot the back exit just off the left of the restrooms. She thinks she might make it before Sookie runs to some vampire and spills what she suspects. She thinks if she shakes off Sookie arm, she’s got a good chance to just escape.

Only, Sookie doesn’t wait till she’s released her arm to suddenly announce without a hint of doubt or hesitation, “You’re a drainer.”

And with those three tiny little words being spilled, the entirety of the club goes still. At least, it does where it counts. The humans continue on dancing, oblivious the massive danger she now finds herself in. Their novelties are no longer tamed lions in cages. They’ve become poked and prodded lions and their cage doors have been left open.

Before she can refute the accusation flung her way a pale and cold hand wraps around her neck. Frantically, her eyes race up only to be greeted by the pale white face of the most vicious looking blonde female viper she has ever seen. The vampire’s eyes, green like wild clovers, are empty and dark as she hisses down at her with her long dangerous fangs suddenly exposed. In a flash she is pulled up off her feet and dragged down the darkened hall the great Northman had once exited.

The slam of a door being ripped open echoes in her ears just as she crashes against a concrete floor. Pain explodes over her entire left side of her back—ribs have been cracked, she has no doubt—as her silk dress tears and skin is scrapped raw and bloody. Before she can even take a ragged gasp through her tight lips an iron like collar is snapped over her neck.

The blonde viper yanks her by the collar, dragging her over the coarse surface of the room floor, until she is attached upon some strange set of twisting metal pole. The pole itself is attached to a circular revolving machine built of someone’s deepest darkest nightmares. A chain running from her new metal collar is connected with a padlock to the pole.

She’s been shackled.

“Sit tight,” the blonde she-vamp growls at her before flashing over to the stairs and flashing back out into the club. The slam of a door shuts off the sound of the club music overhead.

With a gutted sigh she attempts to rearrange herself into a somewhat comfortable position as much as her injuries allow. For a very brief moment, she allows the wild fear rushing through her veins to overrun any sensible thought in her head. A crushing sense of hopelessness wishes to eat her alive causing desperation to tighten around her neck. Tighter, even, than the collar now strapped to her.

But after a minute or two, she straightens her spine and forces herself to think of some way out of this situation.

It comes to her when her forearm pulses. The bruises of Sookie’s fingers lend to her inspiration. A smile creeps over her face as a bubble of hysteria spills out of her. Before she knows it, she’s laughing until big fat tears spill freely from her eyes and she is out of breath. When she calms she leans back against her assigned pole and awaits the return of her undead captors.

Belatedly, she realizes that there are others attached to the ring of prisoners.

~X~

When the door opens again, it does so with an unnaturally slow speed. The hinges on the door creak loudly and the steps of those that come down are unhurried and nearly lazy. As if to say, their captors have all the time in the world to extract the pound of flesh they are after.

It is an intimidation tactic if ever she saw one.

One that is so wildly effective she is compelled to simply stand there, shock still with her heart hammering away at her chest.

When they reach the bottom of the stairs and come into the light she finds three familiar faces staring back at her. At the rear of the group stands Sookie, her bright clear eyes wide in terror and righteous fury. The nameless viper stands at the middle, her pale arms crossed over a crème colored silk blouse and pale blue dress pants tailored tight over her form. At the head of the trio stood, impossible tall, dangerously built, Eric Northman. His dark eyes cold and indifferent upon his carefully blank face trained on her like a wolf upon an antelopes whose leg has snapped.

Standing tall, she tosses her head back and questions, “How much will it cost to get out of this,” at that she yanks on the chain tying her down.

A flax colored brow rises in amusement as the great vampire Northman tells her in a dry tone, “I am not interested in your money.”

“No? I didn’t think so. A vampire as old as you? You must have untold billions squirreled away all over the world, no?” she remarks, a careful expression on her face as she allows her eyes to rake over the strong and gorgeous face of this nights monster.

When she was younger, her mother had always cautioned her about dancing with the devil. Always her mother had told her, if she wasn’t careful, one day the devil would trip her feet and down, down, down she’d fall. Never to be caught only to be burnt. Because, as her mother would often remind her, the devil never played fair.

But, this wasn’t her first dance and neither was Eric Northman her first devil.

“Then what, pray tell, are you to offer me in exchange for your life?” Northman questions, his face the very picture of impassion, “Your body? Your blood? I am sorry to inform you that neither hold much interest to me. What is the phrase the humans use? You are not my _type_.”

“Oh _sweetheart_ ,” she half purrs and half sneers in his direction, “I’m everyone’s type. But, be that as it may, I wasn’t going to offer any of those things.”

“No?” Northman questions, his eyes dark and shrouded in secrecy.

Shaking her head she juts her head back and points leisurely with her chin at the golden skinned beauty behind him, “I was going to offer you another one of those. If you were interested, that is.”

“And she would be, what, exactly?” Northman hedges, his eyes suddenly burning with some nameless emotion.

“I think you and I both know what she is. How else would she know what I was here to do,” she states easily as she shifts the weight of her body from one foot to the other. When none seem to be buying the story she’s giving them, she heaves a heavy sigh and crosses her scrapped arms over her chest and asks, “She’s a telepath right?”

Before Eric can neither confirm nor deny, Sookie surges forward, her eyes wild and her face tight, “How’d you know that?”

“I grew up with someone just like you. Now I’m asking,” at that she turns to her captor, “If the life of a second telepathic friend is enough to buy my freedom.”

“Maybe,” Eric eventually relents, his head tilted to the side as if he will see straight through her if he tries hard enough, “Would your _friend_ willingly give their life for yours?

Laughing she shakes her head and flicks her tangled hair over her shoulder before replying, “Fuck no. She’d sooner die than take my spot on the guillotine. But I was hoping, if I got her here you all could do the ugly bits.”

“The ugly bits? What do you mean?” Sookie questions, her eyes narrowed and angry.

Shrugging she looks the blondes way, “Slaves, isn’t that what you fang-bangers become when it’s no longer fun but you’re still chained to a vamp that won’t let you go? You all can do whatever the hell you want to her once I get her here. Just,” she stills and looks over at Eric’s direction, “as long as I get to leave here alive and unhurt.”

“How do I know you are not lying?” Eric questions after a moment.

“She’s not,” Sookie answers, her gaze briefly sliding over to the side profile of Eric’s face, “she’s telling the truth.”

And then, just like that, the room is plunged into silence. Neither of the four moves. It is a stand off the likes of which she’s never been in before. She’s betting on a long shot with the stakes as high as she’s ever placed them. But, this is her rainy day ticket she’s been holding in on to cash since the day she laid eyes on that strange little girl. Pay out just seems to have gotten closer than she’d like.

“We got a deal?” she asks after the silence has stretched out to an uncomfortable length. Her fear is beginning to creep up on her. The confidence she gathered for herself has begun to crumble.

With a small click of his tongue, Eric tosses her something—which she catches—and demands with an air of dispassion, “Make the call.”

The thing she’s just caught turns out to be her cell phone and in that moment she’s never been so happy to see it. With a slight tremble to her fingers she unlocks her phone and goes about find the number of her ‘get out of jail free’ card. She presses it quick and when the sound of ringing fills her ear she almost heaves a sigh of relief.

When the call is answered by a sleepy, “Yeah?” she almost cries.

She doesn’t, of course, one because she’s never been much of a crier and less so these days. Two because she knows, like water will be wet and air will keep her breathing that the girl on the other end will never _not_ answer. She’s been conditioned—much like an ill-bred dog—to come when called even if it means the hand that’s outstretched will likely hit her before caress her.

“*** _Bebé_ ,” she calls, doing her damnedest to sound small, scared and wounded, “ _Bebé_ , I’m in trouble.”

For a half minute the other line is empty and silent. Then, much more awake, the other end fills with a husky voice as serious as ever, “What happened?”

It’s less of a question and more of a demand to know what she did wrong and why she’s calling in the first place.

“I owe some people money _Beb_ _é_ ,” she murmurs, sounding as if for the world, she is choking back tears and on the verge of hysterics, “I d-don’t—I don’t know what to do. I don’t have enough—they’re going to kill me!”

“What—“ the voice starts only to be cut off with an angry growl. There’s static on the line like cloth is passing over the speaker on the other end, “How much do you need.”

“Twelve thousand,” she fires off a random number. Nothing too high as though to scare her off as an impossible task, but just low enough that she knows the kids got something hidden away somewhere,” I’ve got most of it, I only need six.”

“Where are you?”

“Louisiana…Shreveport,” she practically screams down the line, “I—I can send you the address.”

“I’ll be there tomorrow.” And with that the call ends.

The simpering damsel and distress act bleeds right out of her as she tosses the phone back to the vampires that watch her. She smiles at them before she jangles the chain in their direction, “Is this really necessary?”

“It is,” Mr. Northman replies without any inflection. His dark eyes have shuttered off as if to say he was a million miles away from here and now. As if to say, this whole situation was as important to him as a blown tire on his neighbors car.

“You lied, earlier,” Sookie’s voice cuts through the tense silence, her eyes searching for hers in the dim lighting of the room, “About your name.”

“Sara,” she says by way of answer, her tone bored to pieces that this is what she’s being asked when all is said and done.

Without another word, they file out of the basement. The only person to glance back at her is Sookie. Sookies blue eyes meet her amber ones and burn with uncontrolled shock at her blatant betrayal. She wants to laugh at the sight of it. That she is being judged for condemning someone else when she herself—Sookie—has doomed her.

Instead, she sighs and settles herself down to get some kind of rest before the next night. Sleep comes easy, despite the hard floor and frigid cold, because she knows that despite the late hour and the two-year silence between the two—the kid has already packed what little she’ll bring and has jumped in her car. She knows by the time she reaches the next checkpoint that the kid will have taken out whatever money she’s been saving up. She knows come late afternoon, the kid will be waiting outside for the club to open. She knows this because they’ve danced this jig more times than Sara can count. Albeit never with vampires involved.

So she rests her head easy and waits.

*‘La Noeud Rouge’ – the Red Knot

**Mock-orange flowers mean ‘Deceit’

***Bebé is Spanish for Baby

* * *


	2. Wild Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s an aching need in her—something dark and twisted, entirely broken that practically hungers—to know just how much damage those large hands can reap. A need that makes her skin crawl and has her lips pulling back in a snarl only ever present on mangy street dogs. A demand that whirls around in her heated chest until she hungers for a taste of her own blood mixing with someone else’s.

* * *

By the time she’s six years old, she realizes she isn’t exactly like everyone else. She isn’t like her friend Paloma with her innocent smiles and dimpled cheeks. She isn’t like Rosa with bright joy in her laughter. She isn’t even like Juan with his innocent wonder and brilliant little jokes. She’s six when she realizes all the little secret voices in her head aren’t things she ought to be hearing. Her friends don’t hear each others secrets. They don’t hear mumbles and mumbles of nonsense from the moment they wake to the moment they sleep.

They don’t know that some people lie even with a smile on their face.

~X~

She’s ten when she really finally gets that the voices in her head aren’t the only thing separating her from the rest of her friends. There’s something different about her. It’s in her dark eyes—black like empty shadows. It’s in her skin, that’s never the same soft brown of those around her, but darker like she spends too much time outside despite how she keeps to the night more often than not. It’s in her smile with canines too sharp to be anything cute or innocent. It’s in her face when she’s quick to snarl rather than cry. It’s in the way she’s the first to throw a punch and spill blood than sit back and take it.

Mothers pull her friends from her, to keep them safe. Teachers refuse to let her out of their sight because people tend to act their worst around her. Her neighbors cross their chest and send prayers of protection upwards for protection while casting her out in the same breath like a demon.

~X~

She’s fourteen when she really gets that there’s something distinctly _other_ floating around in her blood. That _otherness_ that pulls other peoples thoughts from their heads and shoves them into hers. An _otherness_ that seems to grow stronger and stronger with each passing day. An _otherness_ that has her wanting to take a bite out of those that touch her and allows her glimpses into their sordid life. An _otherness_ that leaves her feeling, more often than not, empty and drained when she’s not drowning herself in self inflicted pain or caught in the throes of others.

It makes her feel like less of a person and more of a _thing_.

All sharp teeth and claws.

~X~

She’s sixteen, in a foster home, expelled from breaking some guards jaw for no rational explanation and abandoned when she understands one hard truth about herself. She had, previously, adamantly refused to see this truth: _she_ is the _other_. There is no monster hidden just beneath her skin. There is no strange magick hiding in her blood that explains away why she hears what she hears, see’s what she see’s.

The hard truth is that she _is_ a wild, strange and an ugly little _thing_.

Born different, born strange, born wrong. Born with a hungry inferno in her chest where others had a heart. She finds some peace in finally acknowledging this truth. No longer does she fear what might lurk just beneath the shadows of her bones.

The wild thing is she and she reveals in the fear it strikes in those around her. Because that fear she inspires in others, it keeps her safe. It keeps unwanted hands from her and she is safe.

At sixteen, bleeding, broken and used, she embraces her monster and turns it against the world. She makes the world bleed for letting her come out the way she has.

~X~

The first hit is always jarring.

No matter how prepared she is to take it, no matter the fact that she sees the swing first and knows where it might land, it always serves to shake something loose in her. The crack of pain that ignites under split skin and abused bone fills her head with something wild and intoxicating. Her chest, so usually void, is forced to fill with a dark emotion that burns as much as it soothes her. It is an emotion she cannot begin to name.

An emotion she has come to be utterly addicted to. It serves to remind her she is still breathing. That underneath, her heart still thumps an ugly beat. That she is alive and not some cursed half shade.

A fist, a sloppy haymaker, lands just off the jut of her cheekbone. She feels her cheek slice itself open on the sharpness of her teeth. She smiles wild and unhinged as that heady feeling fills her to the brim. Laughter bubbles in her throat spilling out as she spits crimson onto the concrete. Something entirely mad always comes to life with that first hit.

The voices, thoughts that aren’t hers, don’t belong to her, fall silent under the violent thrum of her blood rushing in her ears. In the throes of a fight she’s locked in the overwhelming current that a fight usually sparks in her. She can’t be bothered to look or pay attention to anything except the other body currently throwing fists.

Whether she can hear them or not, she knows that the people are cheering loud and vulgar in the abandoned warehouse. Their voices bounce off the concrete floors and the aluminum walls of the structure. It’s carried out into the wind, she’s sure. But they’re in the middle of crop fields with the closest town being a good fifty-minute drive out. They don’t have shit to worry about being quiet tonight. The force of their fervor shakes the very ground she stands on.

Another high she feeds off.

Tonight they’re hungry for blood, the onlookers. Tonight they want someone to break or die, she isn’t sure. But she can smell it in the air, past the filth of an abandoned harvest shed and mold; she can smell their bloodlust. Heavy and invigorating it makes her heart pound a delirious rhythm against the bone of her chest.

She trades blows with a girl who’s taller than her. A girl who’s skin is lighter, who’s body is more well toned. Her pale brown hair has been braided back in neat rows. The girl is new here, at least, in this circle that is. They’ve never fought before. She’d remember the lead weighted fists splitting open her skin in her dreams. The destruction the new girl brings makes her almost giddy.

There’s an aching need in her—something dark and twisted, entirely broken that practically hungers—to know just how much damage those large hands can reap. A need that makes her skin crawl and has her lips pulling back in a snarl only ever present on mangy street dogs. A demand that whirls around in her heated chest until she hungers for a taste of her own blood mixing with someone else’s.

Her hunger must shine in her dark eyes for the new girl pulls up her shoulders and braces herself for oncoming pain. Laughing, she lunges.

For every hit that she is pummeled with she lands two of her own. She knows what she must look like: _deranged_. She laughs loud and unhinged with every blow she is given. But how can she not? She welcomes that blinding pain. Welcomes it and chases more despite how it cracks her bones and purples her dark skin. The pain that lances through her body somehow feels welcomed and good. And she knows that means nothing good about her that she’s happily chasing the blows her opponent slings at her.

Eventually, she loses all her mind to the fight. Ignores anything resembling a rational thought and allows herself to sink into the deadly dance of giving and receiving pain. Her moves are wild, never calculated or thought out. She attacks and attacks in crazed patterns. Grabbing the girls head and ramming her knee into her ribs over and over until she hears a crack and her knee screams. She hits and hits and hits until the skin over her knuckles splits open to reveal white bone.

It isn’t long before the new girl goes down. And though she should let up, she’s won after all, she doesn’t.

There’s still a howling in her blood. A maddening hunger that claws at her from the inside out. A rush in her head that drives her to straddle that girl’s legs and rain down her fists until her arms shake with the force of it. She keeps hitting until there’s more blood than flesh on the new girls face.

Still, she wants _more_.

There’s a bone deep hunger that runs savagely in her at the thought of dealing death with her bare hands alone. A threatening ravenousness feeling to have her teeth tear into flesh and bones alike. She wants to feel carnage at her fingertips that she cannot stop herself even as the new girl chokes on her own blood. When it becomes clear she isn’t about to stop—murder hanging heavy in the air—large hands grip her and pull her off.

When she stops fighting the hands that both corral and deflect, her arm is raised as she is declared the clear victor. Throwing her head back, she laughs with abandon the cheering of the crowd growing higher. Her dark eyes sparkle despite the fact that when she smiles crimson gushes steadily onto the floor. She allows the crowd to rush towards her and grip her tight despite the ache in her broken ribs.

Tonight the beast roars in pleasure rather than it’s usual hunger. The new girls blood has feed that strangeness in her— _appeased_ it—and given her some peace.

Later, when the new girl is dragged out—unconscious and bloody—she gets paid. Beto, the unofficial promoter for these back alley illegal brawls, pays her the night’s take. She leaves with a little over two thousand lining her pockets.

The money, while good, wasn’t why she did this. And by the caution on Beto’s face, everyone knows. They give her a large berth because they think she is a mad dog who will bite into the hand that feeds her.

She’s halfway to her jeep when someone approaches her. He’s a tall man; at least he is to her, with dark chocolate colored skin. His eyes shine gold in the moonlight. His smile is sharper than it ought to be. He smells of something musky and distinctly unbridled. With her mind quieter, more controlled, and pliable after the fight she can use it with ease.

Like smoke her mind spills outward. She can almost picture it, hands made of black smoke, stretching out to dip into the mans head. Pulling from him gnarled thoughts painted red and hungry. The man’s a werewolf; his mind runs just as wild as her blood.

The monster in her stirs yet again at the prospect of another fight. When he smiles at her, she grins back and allows her split lip to tear once more. He doesn’t seem to mind. His blood is roaring too. He introduces himself, says something in hopes that it’ll allow him into her bed. She forgets his name the moment it leaves his lips. But, her blood is singing again and there’s no one left to fight, the crowd of takers have all gone.

So, she follows him to some mold covered, rat infested motel. Lets him rent the room and follows him inside. There is no care in his hands as he touches her. There is supernatural strength in his fingertips as he digs them into her flesh. He could care less if he hurt her. He growls into her mouth, inhuman and possessive. She meets him; as she meet that nameless girl, blow for blow. She digs her teeth into his flesh until she can taste the tang of his copper blood instead of her own.

She fucks him like she fights. Wild and desperate.

They fight for dominance. He wants to dominate her, tame her, and the beast in her will not allow it. The darkness in her heart roars as she hits and bites taking her place above him. In the light of the moon he asks her, tone awed and reverent, _‘What are you?’_. She laughs until she reduces him to groans and cries of pleasure filled pain.

Later, when she’s managed to get herself back home, she sleeps restfully and peacefully to the quiet of her mind and her monster well fed. Two types of bruises now line her flesh and she smiles against the thrumming pulse of their pounding.

When morning comes she finds herself hunting down the next available fight. There’s at least four takers up in Houston that want a piece of her. And she’s hungry enough to run for them.

~X~

She’s in Amarillo when she gets the call. Still high off the fight she had early that night. She’d fought a man. It had been dirty. It had been absolutely brutal. It had made her laugh and laugh as she broke the mans clavicle bone beneath the heel of her boots.

There’s a tremble in her hand she chooses to ignore as she tosses her phone onto her couch. She doesn’t entirely know how to _feel_ —never really has, to be honest—as she stands in her sparse living room at four in the morning. She feels kind of like she’s been slapped awake and dropped into space all at once. She feels like someone came up to her while she wasn’t looking and ran a buzz shaver down the middle of her head.

Ideally, she knows how she _should_ feel. She knows she should feel angry. She knows she should be spitting mad that it’s taken that woman— _Sara_ —two years to call her back after that shit she pulled in Nuevo Leon. She knows she should want to scream that the only reason she’s been called is to bail the other woman out of trouble— _again_.

Ideally, she knows, she should crawl back into bed and ignore the fucking call. She knows she should turn off her phone and simply not care. She knows come morning she should bail on this rented room altogether because if Sara knew her number then she undoubtedly knew where she was staying at. She knows she should be spiteful herself and switch towns over and just let the bitch deal with her shit on her fucking own. She knows she should ditch her phone for good measure.

Ideally, she knows she doesn’t owe Sara a goddamn thing. She knows Sara’s a grown ass woman and it’s about time she deals with the consequences of her actions. She knows she shouldn’t worry about it. She knows she has every right in the world to grab on to that anger and bathe in it. She knows all of this, knows it like she knows she needs air to breath.

Ideally, she knows she has a _choice_ in this. No one is putting a gun to her head. No one’s forcing her out the door, into her beat up old wrangler and onto the fucking road. There’s a choice to be made here. She could _choose_ to stay and not get involved. She could choose to let the bitch hang for whatever she’s done.

After all, how many times has she been fucked over by her— _Sara_? How many times has she woken up to find her home suddenly empty of all possessions— _robbed_ —and her bank account sitting at zero.

A vindictive sort of anger spurs to life at the memories of past pain. The monster in her veins hungry for a different type of blood.

Still, something else stirs in her too. Something soft, delicate and faded made from the years before. Made up of warm hands, the smell of roses and gentle laughter. Memories she chooses to forget surge to the surface just then and she chokes them down with a frustrated growl at her self.

Standing in the middle of her empty living room, hands gripping tightly at her dark hair until her scalp ached, it takes her all of five minutes to make up her mind. Or, at least, for the worst part of her self-destructive tendencies to override her good sense.

She knows damn well what she’s going to do whether she wants to or not. She’s still going to go— _help_?—even if it means she might get hurt in the process. She doesn’t feel like she’s left with much of a _choice_ in the first place.

In the end, she’s nothing more than a mangy little mongrel fight dog. One who hasn’t learned the only reason they open the gate is to make her bleed.

With a growl uttered behind a clench of teeth she stomps back into her bedroom. She’s muttering curses in two languages vulgar enough to make a nun blush by the time she’s unearthed her trusty duffle bag. She packs her bag with enough clothes to last her about a week and some days. She knows better than to pack a ‘go-bag’ with anything less than at least 3 days worth of clothes.

Cursing at herself, she grabs the bag full of prize money she’s hidden behind the stove and heads for the door. The door to her jeep squeals as she opens it and jumps in. Carelessly she tosses her bag to the back and turns the engine over. It sputters to life with an angry groan.

A text message comes in right about the time she’s lighting a cigarette pinched between her frowning lips. She has to pull her dark wayfarers down the bridge of her nose to properly read the address. When she reads Louisiana she purses her lips and sets to put some music on. Motorhead blasts heavy and loud out her windows as she exhales a heavy plume of smoke as she sets her sights on Shreveport, Louisiana.

A stray thought rushes across her mind just then, ‘ _What trouble might she wander into this time around?_ ’ she drowns out her worries with the taste of nicotine and the heavy rifts of an electric guitar.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope to those who are reading, you are enjoying this story!!!
> 
> Please leave questions, comments and thoughts down below! I enjoy answering anything y'all post.
> 
> -Ani


	3. (3 Vamps + 1 Shifter) x 2 Telepaths = One Hell of a Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The person Sookie has unknowingly damned is nothing more than a child.

* * *

**( 3 Vamps + 1 Shifter )x2 Telepaths=One Shitty Night**

It’s nice out, despite the colder than average winds whipping about her hair. The moon is waning and the stars are glittering like diamonds in the sky. Though in all honesty, she wouldn’t know just how diamonds looked like when and if they glittered like stars. She’s never had any real opportunity to stand about looking at diamonds.

Unless, of course, you counted the sales counter at Wal-mart. And she didn’t, those were likely fakes anyhow.

Still, the night was pretty out. It made her ache for a good book, her grandmother’s favorite rocker and a nice warm cup of tea. A light crocheted blanket tossed over her shoulders to keep the nippy weather at bay. It makes her want to curl up and listen to the dwindling sounds of crickets and catch what few lightening bugs remained.

Instead of all that, she finds herself sitting in Sam’s pickup gathering the courage and needed inner strength to open the door in Fangtasia’s parking lot.

Now, logically, Sookie knows she has very little to actually fear. She knows, logically, that despite all things Eric and Pamela wouldn’t actually kill her. She knows, despite her past actions they wouldn’t just grab her and drain her. She knows, _logically_ , that the safest place for her—till this day—isn’t at home—not even Merlotte’s—but _inside_ that club.

 _Logically_ , she knows that Eric—despite all things—still loves her even if she had left him holding the proverbial bag.

These reassurances do little to actually calm her racing mind. She is riddled with guilt over it all. Even though, she knows, she did the right thing. At least, it had been the right thing for herself in any case.

Staying with Eric, being bonded— _blood bonded_ to Eric—was not something she had ever been okay with. Her relationship with Eric, as amazing as it had been, held no future for her.

Eric, she knew, would always be holding out for the day she agreed to be turned. Or, he’d pounce on the opportunity of her untimely death to turn her against her will, she knows. And she, well she may have loved him—loves him still she thinks—but becoming a vampire was never what she wanted for herself. Not even when it had been Bill who she was tying herself too.

She wanted to get married. She wanted to have kids. She wanted to watch them play and grow under the shine of the midday sun. She wanted to grow old with someone who made her happy.

She wanted to never have to question if the whole truth was being given to her, or a brief summary.

And Sam could give that to her. Sam _would_ give that to her without question. Sam, who has loved her from the second week she’d walked into his life, would never pick and choose what Sookie needed to know as to oppose to what he would prefer to tell her. Sam, despite being a shifter—and maybe in spite of it—wanted a normal life with a white picket fence, a loving wife and normal children.

Sam did not hold people captive in his restaurant no matter the supernatural reason. Sam did not fly into a rage when blood was spilled. Sam did not kill indiscriminately and then offer her a flimsy reason. Sam was _human_ ; at least, he was where it mattered.

Breaking the bond with Eric, ending their relationship, was _not_ a mistake. Sookie could not bring herself to regret it. In the end, Sookie had only one life to live and she had to make the best of it. She had to think of her own happiness. She couldn’t always be holding her breath waiting for whatever danger laid in wait in the seedy underground vampires lived in.

She does, though, regret how it had all gone down. She regrets breaking the bond behind Eric’s back. Driving all the way out to New Orleans, finding Amelia and cashing in a favor. She regrets not speaking to Eric beforehand, as she should’ve. She regrets the day and a half it took her to gather her courage and face him. (Unknowingly letting him think she had somehow died. After all, he had no access to the bond they’d shared for the better part of two years.) She regrets the arguments they had when she’d finally spoken to him.

She regrets the aftermath and how messy everything seemed to get. She regrets the insults that had been traded in the heat of the moment. She regrets rescinding Pamela’s invitation to her home and life after Pamela had come to speak on Eric’s behalf. To plead his case like the faithful childe she was. She regrets how Sam and their relationship had begun because she still can’t forget the expression that sat on Eric’s face when he’d found out.

Sookie regrets it but it was high time she took her life into her own hands.

Pulling in a deep breath she heaves a heavy sigh through her nose. Anxiety and something like dread makes her heart hammer in her chest. She wants nothing more than to go back home. She wants nothing more than to never come back to this club. She wants to put things behind her and firmly in her past. She wants to put certain people in her past too.

But, her life, it seems, whether she was dating a vampire or not, included vampire related problems. She couldn’t go two months without something or the other brining her to Fangtasia needing to speak with Eric. Well, not Eric—not her _Eric_ , at least—but the Sheriff of area 5. Problems that cropped up with a missing high school girl turned Fang-banger. Problems with Were’s and Vampires that needed a neutral base, i.e. Her.

When she’d showed up that night, last night, she had been there on unofficial/official reasons.

 **Officially** , she was there to speak on Sam’s behalf. Sam was looking into buying property in Shreveport. A small little diner that belonged to an old friend of his was going belly up. It wasn’t doing so well and Sam wanted to take it over but it was firmly in Eric’s territory. In order for Sam to do anything, he needed Eric’s…not _permission_ exactly, but at least some agreement that the diner wouldn’t spontaneously catch fire.

Thus, she’d gone to speak to Eric to smooth over any lines preemptively.

 **Unofficially** , she’d gone to speak to Eric. Despite breaking the bond she still felt a strange stirring in her chest. A phantom ache that gnawed at her to seek Eric out and just… _look_? An aching want that had her lying awake at night wondering where he was, if he was fine and if maybe he was thinking of her too. She had no doubt Amelia’s spell had worked. But Sookie thinks, a blood bond was not something that could so easily be cast aside. No matter how hard she wanted it to fade.

That knowledge twists inside her as she sits quietly. Her hands clutch and twist at the hem of her amethyst colored sundress. She’s chewing on the inside of her cheek as she glances over the empty lot before landing on the familiar teal prius parked out front.

A nervous kind of smile spreads over her face as she recognizes that Bill has come too. Bill, who she hasn’t really spoken to over the last year, who she hasn’t seen in over four months because he’s holed himself up with his Blood Sister. Bill who she’s pushed away because he’d used her, slept with her at the behest of his Queen, and seduced her so that she might be bound to him against her knowledge.

Bill who still helps when she gives him a call that she’s nervous about meeting Eric and Pamela for this…whatever _this_ will be.

She jumps almost two feet in the air when a warm, work worn, hand settles over her twisting hands. Ripping her eyes away from Bill’s car she looks up into Sam’s concerned honey brown eyes. His face, golden by hours in the sun, is scruffy but clean tonight. His hair, a dirty blonde shade, has grown long and scruffy. So much so that he’s had to comb it back in a rakish manner that countered the boyish good looks he was well known for.

Tonight, Sam was dressed in a soft maroon plaid over shirt. His jeans were pressed and well fitted over his dark brown work boots. He looked handsome, Sookie thought, with his small smile and caring honey brown eyes. He looked perfect sitting across from her.

 _My boyfriend_ , she thought with a contentment unfurling in her chest.

“Hey cher, I’ll be there. Whatever happens, I’ll be there. You’re not alone,” he tells her. His tone is both soft in it’s sincerity and yet hard as steel in his determination to not let her fall into danger, _again_.

“I know, I know,” she whispers to him. Attempting to send him a smile but she knows it is brittle and strained across her pink lips, “I’m just…worried. Eric…he’s, well, he hasn’t exactly gotten over what—what we used to have.”

“He hasn’t,” Sam nods, his hold on her hands tightening, keeping her grounded, keeping her mind from running away with her with all that has happened, “But he will.”

And Sookie, Sookie knows—with her little quirk—that Sam means that in the most harmless of ways. He means for it to reassure her. He means for it to calm her and let her know that the past she’s so quick to bury will eventually fall away like dust clouds. He means for his words to be taken in the most innocent of ways.

For the most part, Sookie does take it in the way Sam offers his reassurance. Still, it stings somewhere deep in her chest. the same place that has been carved out by smooth pink smiles and golden hair. She ignores it as best she can.

Instead, she asks him, “What do you think will happen tonight?”

“I don’t know,” Sam tells her, honest to a fault.

“This feels wrong,” Sookie confesses, her stomach turning itself inside out.

Since she’d found out about that woman was a drainer—Sara, she’d said her name was—Sookie cannot sit still for the guilt suddenly eating at her. They were luring some unsuspecting person here. Luring them so that Eric could trap them in some type of contract where they would no longer be a free person. Luring a person here on the guise of helping a friend only to be backstabbed.

Sookie blames herself. She shouldn’t have opened her mouth. She should have just let that Sara woman make her attempt at Eric and let the chips fall where they might. It wasn’t Sookie’s place to worry over Eric anymore.

After all, Eric was a thousand year old vampire; he knew how to keep himself alive and well. She shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place.

But when she’d realized what Sara was, Sookie couldn’t let it rest. She’d been overcome with the need to…help Eric. To assist in safeguarding whatever poor unfortunate undead person happened to cross paths with Sara in the future.

“It _is_ wrong,” Sam says, interrupting her personal thoughts with a soft smile, “But, they’re vampires Sook. They don’t care.”

“Okay,” she nods more to herself than to Sam. Shaking out her curled and loose hair, she straightens up her shoulders. Right or wrong there was no point hiding out in the truck like that would stop anything. She was the one to unknowingly set this fire, she’d watch it burn out.

~X~

Entering Fangtasia, no matter how many times she’s done it in the past few years, is always an experience. Tonight the club has been closed down but seeing as to how it’s a Monday night, very few people are likely to get upset. Very few lights are on inside as the human staff and the vampire’s have cleared out. It is likely that only Eric, Pamela and Bill are inside.

With a quick sweep of the place with her mind, Sookie counts three humming human minds and three voids. She blanches as she remembers there had been other people chained to the poles in Eric’s basement. Drainers, Eric had declared with a sniff of his nose. That alone in his eyes had forfeited their right to be treated as human beings. Disgust swirls in her empty stomach.

Stepping past the threshold, her arm entwined through Sam’s, they encounter Bill first. Dressed in his favorite pair of beige colored slacks and a mint green dress shirt, he leans against the bar table. His dark hair is neatly combed. He looks—always has, Sookie thinks—wildly out of place in the dark and suspicious nature of the bar. He smiles wide and happy when she turns to look at her.

“Sookie!” he calls to her as if they are old lost friends and not Ex’s with a heavy and complicated past. His dark brown eyes flash over to Sam’s for a moment as he tilts his head in a customary vampire greeting like manner.

“Bill,” she exhales through a tense smile. Her eyes rushing past him to survey the room to make sure no one else is around. When he embraces her, a half hug that should be awkward, but isn’t, she whispers softly so only they three can hear, “I’m glad you came.”

“Of course,” Bill tells her back, just as softly, his arms tightening just a fraction, “You called.”

And honestly, it shouldn’t warm Sookie down to her bone that Bill still cares about her after all that has happened. But it does. Sookie shouldn’t be so touched when a man who slept with her, seduced her, stole from her, her virginity at the behest of another, _cares_. She should cast him away and spit at his feet. But, it’s Bill. Bill who fought his maker for Sookie. Bill who killed said Maker. Bill who despite his Queen ordering him to turn Sookie would not. Bill who fought demon fae to rescue her and lost a limb in the process. Bill who despite not being in good graces with his sheriff will still come and represent Sookie when she asks.

She’ll always care for Bill she thinks. Like she will always care for Eric too.

“Thank you,” she tells him as she pulls away and steps back into the heated space of Sam’s arms.

“And Samuel, how are you,” Bill starts, his eyes flitting over to the shifter, his smile small and polite. There is no malice in his voice or eyes because Bill just wasn’t that type of man, regardless of his undead state.

“Good,” Sam announces, shifting against Sookie his weight from foot to foot, “Can’t complain.”

“Well, that is good to hear,” Bill drawls in that heavy accent of his. And just when Sookie thinks an awkward lull is about to fall over them the door to the back office suddenly springs open and slams shut.

In a flurry of movement too fast for the human eyes, Eric and Pam flash into the room. Sookie’s curls sway with the force of their movement but eventually settle when Sookie turns to find Eric lounging lazily in his throne and dressed in his usual night attire. That being: dark jeans, his black boots and an obscenely tight navy blue shirt. Pamela is standing at the foot of the raised floor the throne sits upon, on Eric’s right hand side. She is dressed down for the night too. She’s wearing a soft looking white camisole under a robin hued cardigan. Pearls the sizes of marbles hang heavy on her slim pale neck.

Eric looks, for the entire world, like the worlds hottest playboy while Pamela looks like a very young suburban elite.

The tension is thick in the air as Eric surveys the crowd gathered. His eyes, dark and ominous, bore holes through Bill and Sam both.

“I don’t remember inviting you here Bill,” Eric drawls in his rumbling voice; his tone lazy and indifferent.

“Sookie has asked me to be her representative tonight,” Bill admits, no tremor in his voice and his spine straight as he came to stand at Sookies empty left side.

“And the mutt is here, for what reason exactly?” Pamela demands. Her tone is hard and dry. Her jade green eyes are burning like fire as she glares in Sookie’s direction.

The day she broke the bond, Sookie had broken ties with not one vampire but two. Pamela is no longer willing to look at her with anything outside of murderous contempt. After being banished from Sookie’s own home, well, things had gotten… _tense_.

“He’s…” Sookie starts, her mouth drying and her heart hammering. She casts a nervous gaze back at Sam and takes in his stoic expression. He glances back down at her, eyes apprehensive, his mind bracing for her rejection or her lie of omission and Sookie gathers herself up, “He’s my date.”

“Well, my, my,” Pamela coos, a smile as sharp as a dagger splitting over her face and revealing the sharp ends of her fangs, “always did know you to have shit taste.”

And then, softly—so softly, Sookie has to strain to hear it—Eric speaks. His tone is delicate and lofty as if to say he hardly has the patience or the energy to indulge any of them. As if to say he is an ancient grandfather being forced to deal with the bickering of babies.

The words that leave his mouth are not in a language Sookie understands. She wonders if it is a reprimand issued to chastise Pamela, as Eric was wont to do when Pamela toed the line. But Sookie doesn’t think it is. Pamela is still smiling that threatening stretch of lips and glaring so hard she thinks Sam might up and catch fire.

“Bring the Drainer,” Eric eventually sighs as he reclined back into his throne. Looking, for all the world, as if he had already grown weary of the whole situation. And that, well that burned at Sookie like a hot poker shoved into her side.

After all, it was at Eric’s demand that they were all here. It was Eric who had wanted to see if there was yet another human wandering about with the ability to read minds. It had been Eric who wished to trap said human. It was at his behest that they stood waiting for the potential arrival of some person.

“What will you do when she gets here?” Sookie suddenly asks, spurred on by her spark of indignation.

“Does it matter?” Eric questions back. His eyes—trained far away from here and now—flash over to her. Swirling like the darkest most dangerous parts of the sea, they threatened to consume her where she stood.

“It matters to me,” Sookie tells him standing firm.

Sparing her a final glance all he says is, “I will do as I see fit and you will do as you are told.”

“You can’t speak to her like that!” Sam growls out, his handsome face twisted in his rage, “She’s not some dog that has to heel—”

Interrupting so flawlessly with an air of exasperation, Eric cuts him off, “No, the dog would be you Mr. Merlotte. As you know, Ms. Stackhouse is still contractually obligated to carry out her agreed duties till the end of the year. Until the contract is completed, I will speak to her as I please.”

Before anything else could be said Pamela strides back in. The click of her high-heels echoing on the black tile of the club. In her manicured hands she holds a chain firmly attached to the collar of the human she was half dragging.With little grace or care Pamela yanks on the chain until the woman—Sara—is tossed at the feet of the platform.

“Easy with the goods, vampire,” Sara hissed as she attempted to right herself on the steps leading up to Eric’s throne.

For the most part, Sara appears to be unharmed since last Sookie saw her. She’s dirty and covered in a fine layer of grime that seems to have come from the basement. But she’s not bleeding, she’s not staggering from blood loss. She’s also not suffering from any of the effects of glamour.

Aside from her dress being torn and her hair tangled, Sara is well.

“Is she here yet?” Sara prompts as she soothes down the ends of her torn dress. Holding herself in a way that suggests this is not her first time being forced into a corner and being held against her will.

No one offers her an answer instead they are lapsed into a silence that falls like snow in an avalanche. After what feels like a lifetime, both Bill and Sam turn as one to the front door. Clearly, someone has arrived. Reaching out with her gift Sookie feels the hum of a living person and that she has come to expect from anyone with a pulse, regardless of their supernatural inclination. The rest of it though causes her breath to hitch in her throat. 

Having come across Barry—and _my god_ that felt so long ago—Sookie now knew what it was like to come across a fellow telepath. When Sookie and Barry’s telepathic minds had touched she had felt a strange electrical tingling sensation rush across her mind and down the length of her spine. Whenever Sookie was anywhere near Desmond the same could be said, though, she thinks the demon might actively keep his gift from pushing against hers. The demons was always muted, feeling decidedly less like a prickle and more of a fuzzy brush against her forehead, if anything at all.

Always that strange tickling, like a low current of electricity was rushing over her, it left her feeling on edge. Sookie never understood the sensation and did her damnedest to prevent it from happening. Always she battened down the hatches of her mind and hid behind walls and walls of protection. But, whomever this girl was, walking from her car to the front door, it felt less like a tingle and more of a shock. It felt like Sookie had just grabbed hold of a live-wire while standing bone drenched. Sookie has to snap her jaw shut to keep from biting her own tongue at the intensity that burned hot and wild in her mind at having so much as brushed that persons mind.

Pulling in a shaky breath Sookie turned to Eric and hissed through clenched teeth, “She’s a telepath.”

And Eric, he looks nothing more than bemused at her confirmation of this fact. Before Sookie can rightly glower at him the front door to Fangtasia creaks open and in steps the unsuspecting catch of the night.

What steps out of the shadows of the dimly lit club sets Sookie more on edge she hardly feels like she can breathe from it all.

The girl—for the person who’s just stepped forward can be no older than 17—is insanely young. She’s dressed in a black leather jacket—well worn and scuffed at the edges. On her slim hips sits a pair of dark grey jogger pants bunched up at the ends where her black combat boots sit haphazardly tied. The whole of her attire screaming punk rock teenage angst to any who looked upon her.

The person Sookie has unknowingly damned is nothing more than a _child_.

With that in mind she rips herself free from Sam’s comforting touch and steps towards the girl. She has to warn her. She has to tell her to get out of here. Sookie has to…she has to…she wants to beg the girl forgiveness because she hadn’t meant to drag her into this.

But as she steps closer, Sookie sees. She see’s what the poor lighting had hidden upon the first moments. The girl’s inky black hair—cut in razored layers till they brushed her slim shoulders—obscuring her from where Sookie had been standing. Sookie can now make out a cinnamon brown face made up of angular lines and sharp black eyes. Sookie can see apple brown lips busted and swollen. She can see a black and blue bruise marring a sharp cheekbone. The girls left eye is blackened as well, the veins of her left cornea bloody and ugly. The knuckles on her fists—clutching at the brown strap of the bag she drags with her—are swollen and crusted over in dried blood.

The girl before her looks like she’s gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson and put up one hell of a fight.

Sookie’s movement catches the dark haired girls attention. It draws those pitless black eyes over to her and freezes Sookie in her place. And Sookie, an apology on her lips an excuse half out, stands there gaping at the battered girl wondering how someone can look so beaten and still stand so tall. Though, Sookie thinks, the girl is entirely too petite to ever be called tall. She might be shorter than even Pamela.

When Sookie falters, wrings her hands uselessly and gapes at the stranger, the drainer woman calls out. Her voice soft and beseeching as she cried out:

“Bebe! You came!” Sara cried, rushing up to touch the newcomer only to stumble back. Ruthlessly, Pamela steps upon the chain still wrapped around her neck.

That seems to break the strangeness in the air as the girl turns away from Sookie and looks over to Sara. Her eyes, black like empty night skies, follows the chain from vampire to woman before she drawled out nice and slow, “You called me.”

“I did baby, I did,” Sara sobs, and if Sookie had never seen the performance in the basement, she’d believe the crocodile tears spilling freely from the woman’s eyes now.

Without preamble, the girl tosses her brown bag onto the floor between the entire group and declares, “There’s the money, twelve thousand she owed and eight more for the trouble.”

There’s a heavy southern twang in the girls words as she addresses the room in general unsure as to who she must speak to on the matter. Her voice, Sookie thinks, is rough and husky in a way Sookie can only think might be from hours spent yelling or trapped in a room full of smoke.

“She never owed me money,” Eric speaks, his voice rumbling low and dangerous, his eyes gleaming like a snake about to strike.

At this the girl goes rigid. Her eyes flashing upwards to meet Eric where he sits above them all in his ostentatious seat. She meets his hungry stare for one of open caution. For a moment Sookie is tempted to speak—to announce what has transpired, to confess her hand in it all and lay herself at the mercy of the girls rage. But before Sookie can do that, the girl suddenly glances over to Sara’s sobbing face and…

Sookie cannot explain it, but suddenly, the girls’ eyes grow ever darker. Her brown youthful face—though littered in violence—pulls itself into a snarl. The air in the club suddenly feels as if though a thundercloud has dropped from the sky and into the club walls. Threatening to unleash its ire within the enclosed room. There’s pressure pushing in on every side of Sookie making the hair on the nape of her neck stand on end.

She doesn’t realize she’s holding her breath until the pressure ebbs away. Just as the beaten girl tosses her head back and issues the most manic cackle Sookie has ever heard in her life. The girl laughs and laughs and laughs until she’s holding her right side and wiping tears from her bruised eye. She laughs and laughs until finally she begins to walk towards a table that is safely nestled between the Fangtasia Vampires and Sookies own group.

When the girl is seated lazily upon the table she rummages through her pockets, a lazy chuckle still falling from her freely. Soon enough, a cigarette is pinched between her bleeding lips and she speaks, looking directly at Sara:

“ _Maldita perra_ ,” she crows around a mouthful of smoke, “I fucking believed you.”

Laughing, Sara wipes away her tears and offers a smile that is anything but repentant, “Don’t you always Bebé?”

Shrugging her shoulders, the girl ashes her cigarette uncaringly upon Eric’s table and says, “I guess I do. Though never thought you’d ever try to sell me off to Vampires, new low.”

“Well, you know what they say, ‘needs must’ and all,” Sara drawls carefully brushing her hair away from her face.

Issuing a bark of laughter, full of bitterness and with eyes full of hate, the girl mutters just loud enough for Sookie’s ears to hear, “Classy mom, real fucking classy.”

And Sookie, Sookie can only gape at the two women before she thinks, _‘What in the sam-hell is going on here.’_

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this as it comes, so the updates will be erratic if nothing else. I hope you guys like it. I'm working through so personal shit so its gonna bleed on through.
> 
> Thoughts, comments, suggestions all happily welcomed!!!
> 
> -Ani


	4. Laying it out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere, deep inside her, that wild thing in her rears it’s ugly little head back and howls in outrage. She’s never liked the thought of being tied to anyone. Of having to submit to someone else’s will. Some primal trait in her, left over from the days of caves and fire, makes her want to scream at the face of subjugation. It twists something in her till she’s choking on the flames of it.

* * *

She knows, there’s very little she should expect from her own mother. Aside from, of course, the usual bullshit.

Her mother’s never been the maternal type. When she was four she learned how to survive off stale cereal and never complained when her mother—on the rare occasion where she wasn’t high or drunk—made burnt eggs. When she was six and declared adequately self sufficient, her mother stopped showing up at their house unless absolutely necessary. The rare times she did, it was to bring whatever dumb asshole was footing the bills.

Shit only got worse the older she got and the less interested her mother became. She never complained about the abandonment though. Quite the opposite in fact. The only times her mother ever made an effort to show her care usually meant the other shoe was about to drop and land on her head.

When her mother became invested in her, offered caring words and carefully placed touches, it meant there was some kind of catch about to trip her up. It meant back rooms of strangers’ houses and money trading hands.

But, that’s neither here nor there.

When she got that call, she shouldn’t have gotten in her car. She knows what type of person her mother is. She knows her mother only ever speaks to her when there’s something in it for her mother only. She knows her mother only uses her as a means to an end.

She’s not entirely surprised when she walks into what is clearly the worlds most cliché Vampire bar and finds her mother chained to the prettiest blonde female vampire that has ever lived. (Or, not lived?) Though, the chain thing does kinda bring her up short. Because her mother might be a snake but she wasn’t _stupid_. Her mothers never gotten herself into a situation she couldn’t talk her way out of.

A quick brain scan later she realizes her mother has managed to do so yet again. Selling her own flesh and blood to pay for the crimes she’s committed.

Anger had been quick and ready to flare to life. Sitting high in her chest and aching for a release. But, just beneath that, self-loathing had simmered deep in the pit of her gut. She knew better than to get in the damn car and come down here attempting to rescue her black-hearted mother. She knew better than to walk into some unknown club with a bag full of money and hoping it all went down nice and easy.

There’s a bitter taste of self-deprecation slithering down her throat that makes her think she kind of deserves what comes next.

Tired, she sits at the small round table, the kind only ever found in clubs, and berates herself for falling for her mothers ruses once more. This, admittedly, was not the first time her mother had done this. There was that time in Neuvo Leon, Mexico where she was tangled up in drug dealer feuds. Her mother had told her to come down and pegged the whole mess on her when she got there. Her mother had fled in the cover of night. She has a bullet hole in her right thigh for her trouble in all that.

As much as she wants to hate her mother for her actions, she knows where half the blame laid: at her own damn feet. Before she ever stepped into her car, before she even answered that call, there was only one way this was going to go down.

Her mother’s only partially to blame in all this. You couldn’t, after all, blame a snake for biting you it’s in their nature. Even if you only reached in to try to set it free. A snake did as a snake would; it’s in their nature. And her mother’s nature was that of a snake. She only had her self to blame for walking into this shit storm.

Her and her fucking inability to just let the idea of a loving mother fucking die.

Anger floods her veins. That aching need to hit something makes her want to vibrate right out of her own skin. There’s a scream of unadulterated wrath bubbling up from her swirling chest outward. That familiar fire is licking its way up her throat aching to be unleashed in violence, in bloodshed and fucking destruction.

She has no choice, though, but to bite it back and simmer in it. She has no choice but to sit still and let that burning hate boil her from the inside out. She has no choice but to deal with whatever the fuck is about to be decided about her own fucking life regardless of what she wants.

“ _So_ ,” she huffs out, smoke spilling from her lips as she looks out over the gathered faces of Louisiana’s hottest supernatural gathering, “How’s this all going to go down?”

She’s met with silence at that. An odd beat that settles over them like a clang of a quarter being dropped into a dry well.

“Mr. Northman?” she prompts, her brow raising as a slow smile spreads over his lips.

And by the gods, if this were any other situation in some other place, in some other universe, she’d be tempted to just salivate at the sight of him. Because by the gods, that was a man built to be worshipped. Skin the color of polished marble, arms as wide as tree trunks, neck thicker than her thighs. Hair the color of spun gold falling down to brush against his broad-broad fucking shoulders. His face, she could slice her finger on those cheekbones. Michelangelo himself would piss himself if ever given the opportunity to paint that face over the Sistine Chapel.

There was a man built to out do even Olympian gods. And the fucker knew it too, if his flimsy little v neck shirt stretched sinfully over a body built like a goddamn house was anything to go by. His dark denim pants were practically painted on as well. And it was purely unjust that such a gorgeous man was about to screw her over in the least pleasurable way humanly possible.

She doesn’t blame her mothers more inappropriate thoughts when she’d drained her brain for information.

“And who might you be?” Mr. Northman rumbled, his voice dark and low and growling like something born from someone’s darkest desires.

“Mara,” she breathes out smoke and then grins savagely down at where her mother sits chained, “It means _bitter_.”

“And I am Eric, it means _eternal ruler_ ,” Mr. Northman announces, his smile dark and dangerous as he practically slithered to a standing position and then began to walk down his throne steps.

The man was _insanely_ **gigantic** when he stood.

Only when Mr. Northman— _Eric_ is standing at the table Mara sits at does he stop and continue on, “Now it seems you know all about the deal your,” here he pauses and the tips of his elegant pink lips tip down into a frown, “ _mother_ has fleshed out.”

Pursing her lips at both the expression the vampire has used and the word _mother_ , Mara nods her head before pulling in a lungful of toxins.

“Yeah, dug through her head and got just about the gist of it. She wanted to drain you, sell your blood and skip town. Sookie there,” here she juts her thumb over to the blonde hiding behind an equally blonde man and continues on, “shot her plan all to shit and when mommy dearest was looking down the barrel of a blue eyed devils gun, she cashed in her oldest meal ticket to date: Me. That about wraps it up, no?”

Mara very carefully keeps her tone light and breezy. As if to say she is hardly affected by the events happening around her, to her. She thinks if she pushes it far away from herself, she won’t deal with the crippling hurt that’ll eventually come nipping at her heels, at least not now. She can lick her wounds later when she’s locked away safely or maybe pick a fight in some local dive bar to burn it all away.

Right now she’s got to keep her head straight and go with the flow. There’s no need for her to argue or fight. This shit was going down whether she liked it or not. From what she gathered from her mother’s mind, Mr. Eric Northman was an ancient assed vampire with power and connections reaching way beyond Mara’s understanding. Keeping her chained like her mother at the foot of his throne for the rest of her foreseeable future didn’t look like much of a challenge.

As much as Mara loved a fight—in love with the bloodshed and the violence—she also kind of loved the idea of not being someone’s personal…whatever dark thing vampires kept humans around for.

With a fraction of a head tilt, Eric slides into the seat opposite hers and looks her over with an appraising look in his eye. There’s nothing positive in his look. It’s a look one gave before purchasing a cow or a fight dog. It was an assessing stare. One that knew how to look for strengths and weaknesses with ease. A look long since trained to search for the true value of something lesser than himself.

Mara tries desperately not to spit at that beautiful face.

Instead she settles for a simple bearing of her teeth. Knowing full well that her gums were still bleeding from her earlier fight. Knowing full well that her teeth would still be stained red on account to how they had loosened with every brutal blow that man had given her. 

“Yes, that about covers it,” Mr. Northman concedes, looking utterly unbothered by her passive aggressive display.

But then, Mara guesses, blood wouldn’t exactly faze a vampire would it?

“So what happens now?” Mara asks yet again. Feeling like the odd man out suddenly.

Her head game, for all the good it ever did her on people, tended not to work on vampires. Voids, empty blips on her radar that let her know they were there and _otherly_ but did not grant her access into their thoughts. Were’s were gnarly half thoughts that were more intent than anything else. And well, up until tonight, she’d never met another telepath. That had felt like taking a nose dive into a power generator drenched in gasoline lined clothes.

Sookie’s little touch had made her skin crawl because Sookie, Sookie fucking burned like a little super nova. Even her skin, golden sun kissed, seemed to glow like a lit flame. Mara had to refrain from squinting every time her eyes passed over the blonde.

“Well, first and foremost, you are _mine_ now Mara,” Mr. Northman states, pulling Mara from her thoughts; his voice like liquid sin stretching and pulling her name as he informs her of his ownership on her person.

Somewhere, deep inside her, that wild thing in her rears it’s ugly little head back and howls in outrage. She’s never liked the thought of being tied to anyone. Of having to submit to someone else’s will. Some primal trait in her, left over from the days of caves and fire, makes her want to scream at the face of subjugation. It twists something in her till she’s choking on the flames of it.

The inferno in her chest roars in rampage. It wants blood. It wants Eric’s; it wants—more than anything—her _mothers_. Her lips pinch down hard on the end of her dying cigarette as she glares hard in the beautiful fucks direction.

But what can she do? She doubts there’s any real way out of here. Especially not now that she’s gone this far into the club. She can’t outrun a vampire, let alone three. And any way, her mother will help them if she manages to weasel her way out of here. Her mother will give them a list of her known hideouts. Her mother will lead them—by the hand—to where Mara is because her mother wants this debt paid.

Her mother cannot afford to _not_ pay this debt off. Vampires are not to be crossed: it was a cardinal rule. One even congress had understood and influenced their decision making over what Vampires were allowed to get away with.

( _Everything_.)

On top of all that, they fucking _know_ now. They know what she can do. She even went so far as to fucking address it. That blonde burning star confirmed it. Mara doubts they’ll let her go at all. She’s heard tale of how vampires collect people of certain qualities. Were’s whispering about how people with extra quirks just vanish and end up in bed with the undead because it’s good for business.

She’s fucking screwed. Mara knows it and Mr. Northman knows it.

“And what if I’m not willing to trade my life for hers?” Mara questions because, well fuck, she’s got to at least ask.

Mr. Northman, for the most part, doesn’t seem to become rankled by her question. He seems, if anything, _amused_ that she’d argue against being his, “You were mine the moment you walked into my establishment, Mara. Your scent alone is enough for me to keep you tied to me somehow. The fact that you are indeed what your mother promised is only an added bonus.”

“My scent?” she parrots back because, what the fuck.

Mara’s sure she stinks to high heaven having not really showered off the grit of that last fight and the grime of a long road trip. She hadn’t stopped once for a bit of rest. Just enough to fill the wrangler; buy cartons of smokes and caffeine to keep her going.

She’s gotta smell like shit. She can barely stand the smell of herself now.

Nodding, Eric tells her with an indulgent smile on his pretty lips, “Yes, you smell,” and as if for added effect, Eric takes a deep inhale through his nose and allows his fangs to slide out in a delicate move that’s both incredibly dangerous and utterly hot, “You smell positively _divine_.”

And, well, _okay_? That hardly answered anything. But, she’s not going to poke that with a ten foot stick at the moment. She doesn’t need to see that hungry type of expression overcome those gorgeous features the way it has. She doesn’t want to know what Mr. Northman looks like when he’s… _lusting_ after something. It’s just not inherently needed on her part.

Not really.

“So, I’ll settle her debt then?” Mara probes; she makes a vague gesture with her chin motion over to her mother, “My life for hers?”

“Yes,” Mr. Northman allows. His dark eyes glittering as he stared into hers.

“That,” she starts only to pauses as she pulls a final drag off her dead cigarette and stubs it out between the two of them. In an exhale she does little to direct anywhere except his pale face, Mara continues on in a scathing tone, “is a _shit_ deal on my end.”

“Is it?” Mr. Northman prompts, a smile tugging at the ends of his lips, “Are you not willing to save your mothers life? Drainers are—” here he makes a disparaging noise and frowns over his shoulder at her mothers figure, “well, they tend to meet their death in the most unfortunate ways.”

And before Mara can say anything to that, the platinum blonde vampire stepping on her mothers chain speaks up.

“Personally, I like to flay Drainers. I like to peel back that thin layer of skin to expose muscle and bone,” the female vampire tells her. A dangerous gleam shines in her pale green eyes. Her lips—glossy pink and plump—are pulled back in an innocent little smile as if she hasn’t just spoken what she has. Her nose, upturned and cute, wrinkles slightly when she looks down at her mothers body and then coos, “I’ve gotten quite good at it too.”

And honestly? Whoever should utter words like that had no business looking absolutely gorgeous while doing so. There has to be a law against it, Mara thinks.

“Honestly, that sounds like a **Her** problem and not a _Me_ problem. I’m not the one that walked in here with silver in my hair and empty vials in my clutch,” she tells the two-drop dead gorgeous blondes before her. Growling down at her mother as she said her next words, “I couldn’t give two fucks what you do with her.”

“Well,” Mr. Northman says nonplussed, “that is… _unfortunate_.”

“Is it?” she snaps at him, feeling that familiar hate swell in her chest and begin to lick it’s way back out.

It’s getting harder and harder to keep from acknowledging the anger building in her. She’s gritting her teeth, clenching and unclenching her fists, to keep from flying out of her seat and…and… Fuck, she doesn’t even know what she wants to do. She doesn’t even know what she would do to just release the murderous feeling building in her.

Scrubbing her face roughly and reveling in the pain it brings her, she shakes another cigarette loose from her pack and lights it. Heaving a tired sigh she brushes her hair back and growls out, “I’d be yours and then what? What does that mean? You get to feed from me whenever you want? You get to fuck me with or without my say so? Does every vampire under your fucking clubhouse get a go at me whether I like it or not? What the hell am I getting myself into?”

“As I stated before, you are _mine_. What that means is, only I will be allowed to touch you,” Mr. Northman informs her, a very serious expression crossing his face as he furrowed his golden brows, “I am not known to share what is mine.”

“So only you’d get to feed from me and fuck me whenever you’d like?” she bites, breathing in toxins and exhaling poison.

“Feed from you, yes,” he states this with all the confidence of the world. As if to say he will not be moved from this. This, feeding from her, is cemented as a sure fucking thing. Like the sun rose and fell each night, she would be Mr. Northman’s personal juice box. When he says the next words something nameless unclenches in her, “As for _fucking_ ,” he speaks the word like it is dirty thing not fit for his delectable mouth, “I prefer my bedmates willing.”

And then, because Mara has a sneaky suspicion that Mr. Northman is the worlds prettiest looking tool, he adds on as an after thought, “When I take you to my bed I assure you, you will be more than willing.”

Sneering in his direction she huffs out, “It’s nice to have dreams bud.”

But that nameless thing in her settles at his words. Whether he can be trusted to keep his word that he wouldn’t take from her if she wasn’t willing, she doesn’t know. She does know though that she probably has little to fear on that front. How many willing women don’t throw themselves at his feet. Why would he ever look at her like that?

Mara wasn’t particularly plagued with low self esteem but she was a realist. What the hell would someone like Mr. Northman, undead or not, want with her scrawny ass?

Issuing a soft hum she pinches her cigarette between her lips and then unzips her leather jacket. She’s wearing a black bralette underneath and nothing else. Worries about modesty are the last thing on her mind. Like she said, she’s got no issues with self-esteem, she has what she has, and it’s _modest_ at best. When it’s unzipped and the cool air of the club brushes against the molted bruises of her ribs and stomach she heaves a relieved sigh.

“You want me for my Head Game, then?” she asks around the end of her cigarette.

“I have found telepaths to be very useful,” Mr. Northman allows, his dark gaze running down her face, over her bruised neck and down the battered skin of her torso. His gaze is not filled with horror, mortification or pity. He looks on at her with a curious expression, appraising the damage and finding it amusing that she did not care for her current state.

“I have no doubt,” she smirks sending a very pointed look to Sookie and where she stands listening, “You’ve already got one, though. Seems like a bit much to get a second one.”

Offering her the most humble of smiles, Mr. Northman places his elbows on the tiny little table—dwarfing it under his presence—and tells her, “I am very fond of the human expression, ‘ _The more the merrier’_.”

And god, that suspicious thought about him being a tool is starting to look more and more like a fact.

Unable to help the rueful laugh that slips out of her she ashes her cigarette and asks, “Sounds a bit greedy, even for a vampire, no?”

“I prefer to be called _ambitious_ ,” Mr. Northman tells her with a smile.

Shaking her head she looks down again at her mother and takes in the calculating gleam in her eyes. Mara doesn’t need to be what she is to know her mother is plotting. Scheming in her mind to try to come up with a way to guilt trip her into taking the deal laid out before her.

“I would pay you generously, of course, for your services,” Mr. Northman announces, as if knowing that she’s teetering on the edge of making her decision, “I look after what is mine.”

Her lips twitch up into a snarl at those words but for the most part she keeps her gaze locked on her mothers. Willing herself into being anywhere but here. When that leaves her empty handed she shakes her head and mutters a mumbled answer around her cigarette, “ ‘Kay.”

But then, as she’s looking at the elation in her mother’s eyes, shining in dark glee as if her mother can already taste her freedom, a thought occurs to her. Years and years of being screwed over suddenly overflow her then. Making an acidic taste flood her tongue as she bites back the bitter bile of her rage. Mara remembers growing hungry, eating rotten food, stealing, she remembers never having clothes that fit her. She remembers then the abuse her mother subjected her to. Of being force fed pills because her mother’s boyfriend had thought it was funny when she thought the walls were bleeding out monsters. Mara remembers those years of awkward growth. Stuck between childhood and budding womanhood. Being told it wasn’t worth keeping that part of her self, better to sell it while it still cost something and how her mother had skipped town with the money and left for alone to stitch herself back together again.

The bullet scar in her leg pulses in her fury. The stab wound over her left hip—ugly warped and not properly healed scarred skin—screams for retribution. The gash in her skull, hidden by black hair, aches in her fury. Every broken bone ever cracked beneath her mothers ruthless abandon pulsing black and wild. Her monster, clawing and biting at her, screams for revenge.

“But,” she says in the quiet of the club, keeping her eyes on her mother all the while, “I got some conditions of my own if I’m gunna be your… _whatever the fuck_.”

“Oh?” is all Mr. Northman issues; soft and careful, surprised probably at the gall she’s showing for attempting to negotiate her surrender.

Nodding she pulls her gaze away from her mother and tells him, “I’ll be yours. I’ll let you feed from me whenever you want. I’ll be your personal little pocket mind reader number 2. I’ll do it with no fuss and no muss. I just want one thing, well, two actually.”

With a quirk of his left brow, Mr. Northman makes a vague hand gesture as if to say, ‘ _Go on’_.

“I want you to swear to me, for as long as I live,” Mara starts, internally acknowledging that her lifespan had never been that much and that it might a hell of a lot shorter now that she’s taking up with vampires, “however long that might be, you will keep that _bitch_ out of my life. I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to know where she is. I don’t want to wake up one morning to a phone call that she needs money. I want her _gone_.”

 _“*Maldita puta! Despues de todo que he hecho por ti!”_ her mother screeches from where she sits. Silenced only when the platinum blonde yanks on her chain ruthlessly.

“** _No deberías haberme llamado, perra estúpida_!” Mara spits out, fury pulling her accent about. Slowly she turns her attention back onto Mr. Northman as she flicked her dying red cig at her mothers scuffed expensive little heels.

“That can be arranged,” Mr. Northman grants, that amused smile tilting his lips upward again, “The second condition?”

Shrugging her shoulders she lights her third cigarette and asks, “Heard you vampires can make a bite feel good, that true?”

This time, the smile that spreads across his face is nothing small or subtle. It blossoms across his gorgeous face and makes it something so utterly divine she nearly chokes on her unlit cigarette. It’s a leer the likes of which should be illegal.

“Yes, we can. And I promise you every time I feed from you, you will experience pleasure the likes of which you have never felt before,” he practically purred at her, his voice making her stomach tighten and something knock loose in her head.

If she had ever had the good fortune to come across Mr. Eric Northman before all this, she would undoubtedly taken him up on his offer. That twisted something in her, broken and ugly, wants to know if Eric can mix his pleasure with some pain. She wonders what it would feel like to wrap her legs around his thick waist. She wants to know if that pink tongue can unravel her. She wonders if his dick can go as deep as his voice.

Unfortunately, she’s never been very lucky. She’s shit blessed and she’s come across Mr. Eric Northman like this.

Rolling her eyes and swallowing past the lump suddenly lodged in her throat Mara tells him, “Yeah? As tempting as that sounds,” and by the gods it was so very-very tempting, she goes on, “I’d prefer you kept that to yourself.”

Leaning back, Mr. Northman offers her a quizzical expression. His brows furrowing together and his lips turned down into the smallest of frowns before he asks, “I am not sure if I understand.”

“When you feed from me,” she begins to explain, “I don’t want to feel anything except pain.”

“Why?” he demands, his gaze sharpening on her. He’s looking at her like Mara’s got some kind of weapon hidden in her mouth that he hadn’t clocked from the get.

Ashing her cigarette she tells him easily, “I don’t want to blur the lines Mr. Northman. I want to keep things between us strictly professional. I’m not here because I want to be, I was lured into a trap and now I’m taking your offer because if not, you could make it a hell of a lot worse for me, right? I’m making a deal with the devil and I’m just trying to keep from thinking this is anything but that.”

“I see. Well, that is, as they say, your loss,” Mr. Northman announces before he nods his head and then tells her, “But if that is what you wish.”

“It is, when you take from me, you make it _hurt_ ,” she lays it down, her gaze hard and unwavering when it meets his. 

At that, he simply nods before turning to the pretty platinum blonde and issuing some kind of order. The words are in a language she doesn’t understand. But soon enough she watches as her mother is dragged from the room spitting curses both in English and Spanish. She’s laying curses at Mara’s feet but Mara only smiles and waves. Bidding her good riddance in the safety of her mind.

Hoping that if anything, the vampire will be able to keep _that_ devil from her doorstep for however long she lives. Because the lord fucking knew Mara wasn’t strong enough to do it herself.

When the platinum blonde comes back in, flashing like magic, the club has fallen silent. Finishing her cig, Mara begins to rise from her seat. She’s tempted to fidget now that everything has been laid out. She’s not entirely sure how something like this is supposed to come to an end.

Is she expected to stay here, in the club, until told otherwise? Is she supposed to follow Mr. Northman home like some trained little pet?

That thought rankles her. It makes her want to snap her teeth at the mammoth of a man before her. Gritting her teeth against the growl in her throat, Mara forces herself to gruffly ask, “What now?

Without preamble, Mr. Northman rises to his impressive height, utterly dwarfing her five-foot status with his seven foot something. He moves in complete silence and drenched in grace. When he’s standing across from her, he offers her a smooth smile that looks casual and lofty. It is contradicted completely by the dark fervent look in his eyes.

“Now, Mara, we exchange blood.”

And everything in her is screaming not to. Mara’s heard enough tall tales about people getting hooked on V. How one kid jumped off the empire state building because he was so jacked up. Or about that college girl who went stab happy with her sorority sisters and ate someone’s face.

Plus, Mara’s no stranger to drugs. She knows the many faces of addiction and she’s done her best to keep herself off the heaviest of drugs because of it. She knows what it can do to people. She’s watched her mothers descent into madness too many times to count. It’s kept her from really hitting the hard stuff, somewhat. But, Mara knows she’s got little choice over this. Pushing up the sleeve of her left arm she offers it out to the vampire before her.

Mr. Northman’s touch is a bit of a shock. Logically, she knows about vampires and their undead state. Everyone did now. She knew they were technically dead. Mara also knew, because every other exclusive on tv or in the papers was Vampire orientated, that vampires were known to be cold to the touch. After all, they’re dead bodies with no pumping heart and all the good stuff that keeps a body warm and comforting.

Somehow, Mara always took that to mean that they were as cold as a frozen slab of meat. That is in fact, not the case at all.

Mr. Northman’s fingers, thick, long and strong, are not _cold_. At least, not like she’d thought. His hands feel, more than anything, like the hands of a person who has been outside in the cold rain for more time than they ought to. There’s still some low level of heat there that might trick ones mind into thinking that they—the vampire—were still alive.

It’s a bit of a shock.

One Mara chokes down. Her lips part on a silent gasp as her eyes flash up and over to that dangerously beautiful face. Her dark eyes—weary—meeting burning pale blue orbs. Carefully, Mr. Northman wraps his large hand around the delicate curve of her wrist, engulfing it entirely. With a gentle tug, he draws her forward, closer to him. So gently that Mara hardly stumbles at all. His large calloused hand—worn over by whatever life he once led when he lived—feel like the deadliest of sins. They burn her with a strange icy fire. His touch feels like both a threat and a reassurance to something she cannot begin to name.

Never has Mara been so utterly confronted by her own mortality as she is now. For in that great and gentle hold, she wonders how easily must it be for Mr. Northman to break her bones. How much effort must it take for him to tighten his fist and grind down the bones in her wrist into nothing but fine dust. She wonders how he must feel it.

Were her bones, despite being hardened by a rough life, as fragile as a new born sparrows? Mara wondered, as she stared up into those eyes.

How easy must it be for Mr. Northman—the great immortal god—to end her life in a single motion? Mara wonders if he might, if he would. It’d be easy for him, wouldn’t it? What was the strength of a dog to a god?

Were she not about to be forcibly tied to the bastard, she’d marvel at every inch of him. Truly, he must have been born from some pagan god. Everything from his height, to his build and even his facial features gives way to that. He is a lost relic to a harsher, darker time. Standing a clear two feet above all the rest, built like a warrior of battle, he is—begrudgingly—a sight to behold.

When they’re standing less than a foot apart Mr. Northman raises her wrist up to his mouth, his blue eyes locked with hers. He pauses only before his lips touch her flesh.

“Are you sure about the pain?” his question is uttered softly, gently, and to anyone else it might have sounded genuinely concerned. But Mara can see his eyes and his eyes hold only quiet amusement.

Like the god he very well might be, he was indifferent to her suffering. He could care either way. The look burned Mara.

Growling she shoves her arm forward and all but demands, “Make it _hurt_.”

And that, it seems, is all the prompting the vampire-god needed. His fangs extend in one clear and elegant move. They glistening pearlesque under the florescent lighting. When they sink into her flesh they do so without an ounce of issue. The pain that floods her body is expected.

Though, she can hardly feel it. It feels little more than a razor splitting skin. It hurts considerably less than a punch to the face. It hurts less than a broken rib or a broken nose. The wash of pain that floods her skin makes pinpricks rise across the span of the arm he holds but nothing more.

It’s baby pain.

Mara almost laughs.

She doesn’t though. Mara’s pretty sure that wouldn’t be… _polite_ in the face of things. Instead, she stands quietly and just takes in the first time she’s ever been literally fed on. She tries to commit the feel of it to memory. The sensation of fangs sliding into flesh and then effortlessly slipping back out. She memorizes the feel of her blood gushing out of two pinprick holes. She tries to not freak out at the otherworldly feel of a strange warm/cold mouth sucking at her wound. Mara commits it to memory so that the next time—because there will be a next time he feeds on her—she will know what to expect.

When eventually he pulls back and away Mara half sways on her feet. Her head feels heavy and her ears full of cotton. She knows what this is, has been in enough ugly situations in her life to know what blood loss feels like. Gritting her teeth against it. Mara stubbornly stays still and upright as Mr. Northman pulls away from her.

Blinking away the dizziness she feels creeping into her vision, she stares at the vampire. Mr. Northman has gone pink in the cheeks. Where he had looked like a sun-bleached poster before, he now looked as if printed in HD. His color filled out to something harsher, something definitively more _human_ , even if it was all too bright. His flaxen colored waves seemed to shimmer and sparkle where before they had looked dull and listless. It accentuated the darker streaks of brown that ran through them. His eyes that had been pale and almost washed out, appeared to glimmer like a raging sea. 

He looked breath taking, Mara begrudgingly thought, even with her blood staining his pink lips rogue. A God reborn with _her_ blood.

The sight of him, basked in newfound glory and power, shakes the monster in her. It makes her monster howl in some strange rush of nameless emotions. Something wild like _approval_ sings in her. Something sick like _pride_ , that her blood had caused this, makes her stomach tighten and twist.

Yanking her hand out of his grip Mara goes to step back, but is deterred when his hand reaches out and grips her lightly by the elbow. His touch, as it had been earlier, is gentle yet firm, it keeps her in place whether she’d like it to or not.

“What?” Mara bites out, her face twisting, expecting some hidden catch to come now, “You fed, already.”

“Yes,” Mr. Northman tells her, his beautiful eyes glittering otherworldly, “Now you must take from me Mara.”

“Why?” she snaps out quickly. Her eyes narrowed as she glared up at him.

And really, the height difference between them was utterly ridiculous.

Smirking, face reanimated by her blood, Mr. Northman was a risk to the general population, “When you ingest my blood I’ll always know where you are and if you are ever keeping anything from me.”

And that, well _that_ , didn’t exactly fill her with a sense of ease. The thought of someone—anyone, vampire or not—having that kind of power over her, it makes her want to rage. It fills her with cold dread. It makes her want to turn right the fuck around and, just… _not_.

‘ _Fuck you’_ sits nice and ready on her tongue. As well as a good ‘ _Go fuck yourself_ ’ because fuck that. Wasn’t it enough that she was already agreeing to this whole shit?

“Is my word not enough?” she bites out, her teeth bared in a snarl worthy of any kind of predator.

Her word, one could call Mara a lot of things, but if she gave her word she fucking kept it. Mara prided herself in that alone. Where her mother was all lies and empty promises, Mara never dared to promise a thing unless she knew for damn certain she was willing to keep it come hell or high water.

“My blood will tie you to me infinitely more than your word might. This is, as they say, non negotiable.”

Grimacing, Mara roughly scrubs her face with the hand he had bitten her with. Focusing on the pain of her wrist and the ache on her busted face keeps her from saying something that might piss him off. He was being, after all, completely patient about the whole thing. At least, all things considered. Mara was never known to be an easy person to deal with on the best of days.

Nodding she glares at him and waits, already understanding that there were some thing’s she wouldn’t be able to fight against. Distantly, Mara wonders what other kind of bullshit she might be subjected to after all of this begins.

When Mr. Northman offers her his wrist, it is already punctured and bleeding. When she takes it into her mouth she glares at him right in the eyes and sinks her own teeth into his flesh. A vengeful act that she revels in like the petty kind of person she is. For she knows her teeth are sharper than most and she knows they can tear into flesh just like a dogs might if pushed.

There is no elegance to it, not like his had been. Her bite is meant to rip and pull. To _maim_.

If it hurts him, Mr. Northman does not notice. He simply smiles down at her, fangs and all, as if he thought her payback was nothing short of charming. It is a smile one might see on an elders face when looking down at unruly children; indulgent. Mara decides then and there as she drinks a mouthful of his surprisingly sweet blood, she hates that fucking smile.

When she pulls away, she wipes angrily at her lips and spits what lingers in her mouth onto the floor. Ignoring, completely the strange energy suddenly buzzing beneath her flesh.

“That it?” she snarls, losing the fight she has with her internal wrath.

Inclining his head in a move that is entirely too refined for such an amazingly huge tool bag, he concedes, “That is all for this night.”

“Good,” Mara growls out before she pushes past him to retrieve her bag full of money.

She’s halfway out the door before she realizes that pretty platinum blonde vampirette is following her. The girl says nothing even as Mara tosses open the door and lets it bang against the heavy concrete wall behind it. There’s suddenly great strength in her limbs that must have come from the vampire blood she begrudgingly chugged down. The vampire follows close behind her until they reach where Mara had parked her Wrangler. When Mara has successfully yanked open her driver door and tossed in her bag she turns and glares at the female vampire.

“You gunna wish me goodnight?” Mara drawled sarcastically, already lighting a new cigarette.

Smiling, like a shark, the pretty little girl flashes her fangs and sneered back, “Do I look like a Wal-Mart greeter?”

And that, well that startles a genuine laugh out of Mara. It makes her smile wide and ugly as she shakes her head and climbs up and into her car. When the engine has turned over she leans out her drivers seat and says with a leer of her own, “Nah, you’re too pretty for that bullshit.”

She leaves in a screech of burning rubber and a cloud of cigarette smoke. She puts Fangtasia in her rear view mirror and doesn’t stop driving until she’s crossed state lines. She heads for her two bedroom one bath little shit shack in La Homa to gather up what few things she owns. Whether that’s allowed she’s not entirely sure. But she does it. Doesn’t think Mr. Northman will care if she’s gone for the three day’s it’ll take her to tie up some loose ends.

If he does, well, he can eat shit Mara thinks.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
*Maldita puta! Despues de todo que he hecho por ti! – You fucking bitch! After all that I’ve done for you!

** No deberías haberme llamado, perra estúpida! – You shouldn’t have called me, you stupid bitch!

* * *


	5. Interesting, yes?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’d fought him, as he hoped she would, when it had been her turn to drink. Her teeth, almost as sharp as his, had severed tendons and flesh like the sharpest of blades. She bit him in retaliation. Inflicting pain as her eyes had hungered for something bloodier, deadlier. He wanted to know how much more darker those eyes could burn. She’d taken more than was necessary. He could have stopped her, should have put a stop to it, but he had been entranced. Watching as she devoured him with the appetite befit only a savage.

* * *

“Well,” Pamela drawls, low and lazy, as she circled the bar-back and disappeared behind it, “that was _interesting_.”

There is no real emotion on her beautiful face as she looks at him. Her pink ripe lips are caught somewhere between a smile and a frown. Her pale blonde hair has been pulled up into a lazy ponytail. She looks beautiful, he thinks, even if there is that agitating gleam in her mossy colored eyes.

To that, all Eric can do is hum from where he sits upon a barstool. His elbows resting just so on the counter. He’s pointedly ignoring her inquiring gaze because his mind is still lingering on the taste sitting heavy on his tongue. His thoughts filled with the memory of that unruly girl.

When first he’d laid eye on her, he had thought little of her. By way of looks, she was found lacking. There was nothing about her that might have ignited anything in him. She was scrawny, short and entirely too young for his tastes. But the further she’d walked into the room the more she had piqued his interest.

Her skin the color of browned sugar, of rain drenched earth, glimmered as though she had engrained the fine dust of gold into her very self. Those unruly snarls of half curls were as dark as the shadows of night long since lost to man. Her eyes too were pitiless, empty and ensnaring as only fell magic could be. And her lips, such dangerous snarling things, were wide, plump and brown—like rotting strawberries. He has no doubt, those lips could fell an entire kingdom if they weren’t pulled into a frown.

When those eyes, as wild as the girl herself, had surveyed the room—much like the predator she was—and found danger he had been ensnared. There was some type of nameless magic hanging dark and heavy on slim shoulders. There had been death and destruction clinging to her, kissing her skin black and blue. She was a demon masquerading as a mortal girl. Confirmed only as the girl had tossed her head back and cackled madly.

Announcing to the whole of the world her fury, her pent of frustration and all the vicious intent to render the skies crimson with blood. Her teeth, too sharp to be that of preys, gleaming in the light. A monsters cry.

Her scent had been what had stirred him from his seat. She’d smelled of pain. Of blood drying upon her skin—blood that had not been hers—blood that had belonged to a slain opponent. She’d smelled of vengeance and brutality, unhinged and screaming to explode in a violent whirlwind that threatened to consume them all. He had breathed in deep her scent and committed it to memory.

He didn’t need any more proof that the girl was supernatural. No normal mortal human could smell like that. Like the darkest wine, wilting flowers and the blackest of magic.

When they’d spoken, traded barbs, he had thought maybe her wildness would calm in the face of his considerable power over her. If anything, that strangeness in her blood had roared in his face. Her eyes had burned like the darkest flame aching to incinerate him where he stood. She was a wild little thing, baring her teeth at him, snapping at him, threatening to kill him even as she turned her head to avoid a head on argument. She’d not been cowed and he had been exhilarated.

Her fury had unfurled in her scent, billowing outward until the whole of the club burned with it. The thought of being shackled, of being owned, had rankled the beast in her. The scent of her ire had almost rendered him to his baser of self. The shifter had trembled where he stood, fighting his nature to shift.

There had been no mercy in her eyes as she had demanded her kin—her _mother_ —be removed from her life for her transgression. There had been no hesitation when she demanded he deliver her pain. She was a demon and she held no illusion that she was anything but that.

He wanted her because of that alone.

When he tasted her blood he had to fight the beast lying in wait inside him for control. Her blood had been heady, intoxicating, maddening. Burning him from the inside out. Her blood, just as wild as she, was liquid fire. At nearly one thousand and five hundred years old, he used all his acquired strength to pull away and not drain her dead in that very moment.

She’d fought him, as he hoped she would, when it had been her turn to drink. Her teeth, almost as sharp as his, had severed tendons and flesh like the sharpest of blades. She bit him in retaliation. Inflicting pain as her eyes had hungered for something bloodier, deadlier. He wanted to know how much more darker those eyes could burn. She’d taken more than was necessary. He could have stopped her, _should_ have put a stop to it, but he had been entranced. Watching as she devoured him with the appetite befit only a savage.

She’d offered him one last insult before she left, spitting his blood at his feet. Her face, battered and bruised, healing before his eyes to show the youthfulness of the girls face the demon wore. She was gorgeous with his blood on her lips and her brown skin shimmering.

He yearned to drag her back and into his bed. But he not lied to her, he wanted her willing. Would never take from the monster hidden beneath her skin, at least, not that. He wanted, more than anything, to seduce the girl and the demon. To render them tame and have them submit at his feet willingly. He had tamed wild seas as a man and over come the beast that dwelled beneath his vampire blood; he would tame this demon too. He hungered for it now.

 _Mara_ , his beast whispered. _Mara_ , his blood roared. _Mara_ , it was both a word meant to curse and bless. He wanted his name to fall like prayers off her plump lips. He wanted to have that demon worship him as her new god. To lay her blood to him as an offering for his ever present hunger.

It was evident in the way he looked at her, at least to Pamela it was. Only Pamela would ever be able to look past the indifference of the mask her wore. Only Pamela would know him to his deepest depths because Pamela had crawled in them with him. The enraptured way he watched _Mara_ leave and the way he had dismissed Sookie—who had once been his—Sookie who still ached for him whether she wished it or not, Pamela had known _why_. Pamela always knew, her eyes always seeing more than he would like, what was written on his face clear as day.

“Yes,” he murmured, keeping his tone light, “ _interesting_.”

When he glances upward, captures his only childes gaze, he sees the concern that simmers just below the cautious expression. Pamela, for all that she is a cold-hearted creature, who would rather stake herself than admit she felt something more than hunger and pleasure, worries for him.

Worries because it had taken her so long to pull him from his grieving. When Sookie had cut her bond to him, it had torn what shred of humanity he had held onto. It had taken him longer than he would like to admit to come back to himself. To attempt to fit himself back into the mold of the monster eons of years had created him to be. Pamela does not wish for him to repeat the same mistake.

Taking a mortal into his bed, caring for her, only to have him fall apart once more.

It is a pointless thing to worry over, he thinks. He could never love another as he had Sookie. That had been something pure and delicate— _tender_. It had reminded him of his human years when his heart had beat a steady rhythm. Sookies eyes reminded him of the skies of a homeland long lost to him. Sookies golden skin reminded him of hours spent underneath the sun. Sookies hair had reminded him of the endless fields of wheat of his village. She was the embodiment of all that he had been and what he had lost.

The chances of something like _love_ happening to a vampire like himself a second time, well, it was impossible. But, Pamela worries. Pamela would always worry for him.

“This one is different,” Pamela tells him as she slowly closes the distance between them, despite the bar firmly separating the two.

To that, Eric nods his head. He knows. He understands. Where Sookie had burned like the rays of the sun: pure and brilliant. This one was set a glow with the rays of the moon: obscure and treacherous. This one, _Mara_ , was nothing like Sookie despite the fact that they were both Telepath’s. This one would likely rip his throat out before ever submitting as readily as Sookie had.

This one was savage.

“She doesn’t smell like a normal breather,” Pamela contemplates aloud. Her significantly smaller hands placed carefully close to his.

“She tastes…” he starts only to trail away, his words losing themselves on his tongue as he attempted to put to words what he had tasted in her blood, “darker.”

They lapse into silence then. Both contemplating the pro’s and con’s of getting into bed with something they both do not understand.

“Call Rodgers,” Eric tells her softly, his eyes meeting hers, “I want to know everything.”

Pamela nods, understanding that this must be done as soon as possible. Rodgers, their FBI contact, would undoubtedly scour the very earth to find whatever past the girl had or hid. Money would always motivate humans it seems. With that said, he moves to stand only to have a delicate hand hold him back at his forearm.

When he turns to his childe he is very unsurprised to find hunger shining in her sea green eyes. He smiles at her, openly. Remembering briefly what a ravenous little thing she had been her first years after her turning. For a moment, he feels young again; Pamela looks young again.

“Would you like a taste?” he whispers, leaning against the bar to hover over her parted and waiting lips.

Growling, Pamela bares his fangs at him. Whatever witty quip she might have had dies as he crashes their lips together. Their tongues shred themselves over both their fangs. Drawing blood, mixing together with the taste of Mara’s still on his tongue. They fight for dominance, neither willing to give the other an inch. And that, Eric ruefully thinks, is exactly why they had only had their brief tryst.

Both needed to be the conqueror and not the conquest.

When he pulls back and away, his torn lips already healing he looks over his childe, wide eyed and panting and smirks.

“That taste,” Pamela mutters, her fangs still extended in her hunger.

Nodding Eric pulls his hand free from her hair and caresses his childes jaw before whispering, “ _Interesting_ , yes?”

Without another word, he slips away and heads down to the basement to deal with his demons worthless broodmare. Pamela’s voice follows him down as she places the call to their private little detective. Distantly, he thinks of maybe making a call of his own, to his lawyer to draft up an official contract. A contract to maybe appease her more human compulsions. A contract to lay out in black and white what she was willing to do and what she wouldn’t, as he had done with Sookie.

But then, her remembers this wild thing has not acted like Sookie. She did not breath like Sookie. She snarled like an animal and in his world—the supernatural world—the blood bond held more significance than written words. The blood bond will be enough of a shackle to keep her bound to him.

At least, for now.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Eric makes me nervous. I always want to write his thoughts dark and in the end they end up sounding wayyyyy too romantic for this early on. But, I think my version of Eric is a romantic at heart even if he refuses to acknowledge it.
> 
> I hope whoever is reading, y'all like it?
> 
> Thoughts, comments, suggestions are welcomed!!!  
> -Ani


	6. Heaven on a Swampland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s tiny, the house. The porch is enclosed and seems to wrap itself all around the exterior of the house. The windows are large and bay shaped in a way that’s meant for sunlight to stream inward and light the inside. Green-green grass grows all around it, wrapping itself around the massively thick trunks of the trees lumbering around. There’s about a good half acre all around the house that’s been cleared away from the obstruction of a real jungle. There’s a carport to the left hand side of the house made of the same red aluminum roofing of the house. 
> 
> In total, it’s cute, and in no way ostentatious. Drenched in that southern Louisianan culture she’s prone to seeing in lifestyle magazines. 
> 
> She likes it immediately.

* * *

It takes her about a day to clear out what little she owns out of her rented home. When everything is tied to the top rack of her jeep she makes her way back to Louisiana. This time around she takes it slow. Every time she gasses up she idles and smokes at least halfway through a pack before climbing back in.

Mara wouldn’t exactly call it stalling. More like dragging her feet.

When she crosses state lines she starts putting in more of an effort to get back to Shreveport a little sooner. She needs to find a permanent place to hole up now that she’ll be sticking around for the foreseeable future. Plus, she’s not _stupid_. She’s read up on vampires. She knows that they can’t force their way into someone’s home. They have to be invited in. Some kind of ancient magic that still keeps humans relatively safe to this day. Though, it only works when it’s your home, in your name.

Mara’s not really sure about what Mr. Northman is thinking when it came to her living situation. But she’s not about to be set up in a place where he can waltz in whenever the hankering feeling of hunger tugs him just _so_. She’d like that extra layer of protection, thank you very much. Never mind how flimsy it might be. Pulling over at an Exxon, she purchases a local paper and sits in the parking lot looking through available places.

There’s at least five that she finds that are suitable for her. In that they’re cheap and close enough to the bar that she doesn’t think it’ll be an issue with Mr. Big Bad and Blonde. She doesn’t have much; well she kind of does, prize money saved up for almost six years has left her with a suitable nest egg. Though, she’s not entirely comfortable blowing too much of it. Who knows how much Mr. Northman is going to be paying her in the end.

Placing the calls is the easy part, Mara finds. It’s everything that comes after that makes her want to rip her hair out. She meets at least three sellers in person. The first two, take one good look at her, and immediately write her off. They don’t even bother to keep their disdain in their heads. They snub her and snub her hard.

They don’t like her clothes. They don’t like the lazy way she’s pulled her hair up into a messy bun. They don’t like that fact that she’s got bruises on her face. (Though, _really_ , they aren’t that bad. Mr. Northman’s blood had accelerated the healing. Her bruises and even her eye had grown soft and yellow.) They think she’s too young to be taken seriously. It takes everything in her not to swing at the last one. His not so subtle prompting on how she could pay the rent with something other than money makes her snarl.

In the end she heads into the first realtor office she can find. Simmons and Simmons Realty. Mrs. Simmons smiles at Mara even if her mind races a little with fear. Mrs. Simmons is polite and a perfectly respectable old lady whose been in the realty business for almost as long as Lela has been alive. Mrs. Simmons is a professional. She keeps her disapproving comments to herself. Regardless, Mara hears them. But she ushers Mara in despite how she disapproves of her clothes, piercings and yellowing bruises.

When it becomes apparent that Mara, who isn’t as young as Mrs. Simmons thinks, is actually a serious buyer things start moving.

“I’m sorry?” Mrs. Simmons stutters out. Her pale brown eyes wide behind her thick 80’s styled glasses.

Shrugging Mara pulls her bag from where she’s tossed it on the floor and dumps it on Mrs. Simmons desk. It’s the same brown satchel-thing she’d carried into Fangtasia the other night. This time though, it carries way more than 20 thousand.

“I mean, I know it’s probably enough for a down payment but, like I said, I’m looking for something that I can move into today.”

“Y-You have 55 thousand,” Mrs. Simmons repeats back to her in a stunned tone. Her wrinkled dark skin looking pale as she stared at her, “in _Cash_?”

“Probably a little more to be honest. Last I counted, it was 55 G’s. But I emptied out all my hidey-holes so it might be a bit more. Is cash a problem?”

Mrs. Simmons, mind racing, shakes her white and black streaked hair before gesturing towards the bag, “May I?”

Shrugging Mara jiggles her leg and runs an aggravated hand through her hair. She wants to gnaw right through her newly healed lip. There’s a crawl just beneath her skin that aches for the pain a fight usually leaves her with. The pain usually grounds her—keeps her whirling emotions from eating her up—and she’s self aware enough to know how unhealthy that is. But healthy isn’t a word she’d never bother to use as a descriptor for herself.

Most healthy people don’t read peoples minds. Most healthy people aren’t always splitting at the seams with rage. Most healthy people don’t…

“You know, I’ve always been a firm believer of that old expression,” Mrs. Simmons tells her, her eyes growing wide at the stacks of money she has dug out. When their eyes meet Mrs. Simmons smiles, “ _Cash is king_.”

At that Mara laughs, that jittery feeling under her flesh receding if only for a bit. The fire in her chest banking as she thinks, Mrs. Simmons with her more _jesus-y_ thoughts, might be alright.

~X~

After what feels like forever, but is actually nothing more than about an hour and a half. Mrs. Simmons finds her 15 houses within her price range. Five are knocked clear out of the running when Mrs. Simmons gets on the line and tries to get the proper people on the line for the whole deed changeover. Eight more get eliminated when it turns out their up town and in the city.

“So how _out of the city_ do you want it?” Mrs. Simmons asks, a cloud of smoke spilling from her red painted lips. She’s much nicer, Mara thinks, now that the informality of first meetings has bled away. The fact that Mara’s letting her bum straight out of her pack has too soften something in the air between them.

“Does Shreveport have forests?” she snarks, ashing her cigarette in Mrs. Simmons peacock shaped ashtray.

The thought of living so close to people and their whirling minds already puts her on edge. She hasn’t had any problems controlling her little mind game. Not since she was 13 hungry, barefoot and homeless. Her control of her little nifty trick only ever seemed to grow the older she got. But the thought of always having to actively put energy into keeping others thoughts out and away makes her squirm.

She’d like to live somewhere with the sounds of trees echoed on the wind. She wants, maybe, to smell some flowers when the time rolls around. Kinda like where she lived when she was a kid. Before her mother had stopped being her mother. But then, right now, she’s just hoping for four walls and a steady floor. She’ll take whatever out of the way hovel she can find.

Shaking her head Mrs. Simmons goes through the stacks and stacks of manila folders strewn across her desk. Her dark brows are pinched in concentration as she murmurs, “We got swamps baby girl.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” she mumbles around her cig.

Glancing upward, Mrs. Simmons appraises her warily, “Are you serious? Because if you are, then that opens a lot more avenues for me.”

Nodding Mara tells her, “I grew up surrounded by _monte_ and harvest fields. I’m kinda used to being outside of city limits and quiet nights.”

With that being said, Mrs. Simmons drops the files in her hands and excuses herself out of her own office. She’s gone for a total of twelve minutes before she returns with her bag and her cellphone pressed between her shoulder and her ear.

“Amos! No— _Amos_! It’s Bea!” she screams down the line as she wrestled some files into her haphazardly open bag, “No your _sister_ Bea! Yes, **_me_** , Beatrice!”

Mara smiles despite herself as she sits comfortably in Mrs. Simmons plush chairs. Mrs. Simmons voice, so calm and careful, has an accent that’s very Louisianan/Cajun. It bleeds into her voice the more agitated she becomes with her brother.

“Amos listen to me, I need you to head on down to Otis’ old house,” Mrs. Simmons barks out once she’s finished gathering her things, “Yes, yes the old one, yeah the one he got married at. Amos! _Pour l’amour de Dieu!_ Listen to me before I murder you, Amos head on down I’ll meet you there.”

The call ends when Mrs. Simmons tosses her phone into her bag and heaves a growly sort of sigh as she grumbled, “That man, I swear, he’s younger than I am and he still can’t figure out that damned phone!”

Mara says nothing, just looks on, wondering where the hell the woman was about to take her. One quick peek into her head and Mara knew Mrs. Simmons was about to spirit her away on some kind of tour. Mara waits it out. She knows most people find it unnerving when she just happens to _know_ things.

“C’mon then,” Mrs. Simmons says, motioning with her hands for Mara to get up and get going, “I got a house I wanna show you. If you don’t like it there’s a couple of others I got on the way back.”

Nodding, Mara stubs out her cigarette and shoulders her own bag. They leave the office only after Mrs. Simmons has locked up. Climbing into Mrs. Simmons little green Kia Sorento they take off to the outskirts of Shreveport.

~X~

Now, taking into account that Mara’s biggest purchase was her Jeep Wrangler at only six thousand, Mara thought her measly 55 wouldn’t get her much. After all, even at six thousand, her Jeep came well used and rough. It probably wasn’t a smart buy truth be told. Her ’98 was clearly more damaged than the previous owner had let on about. But she had been nineteen then and had won enough fights to finally buy herself something nice. It hadn’t mattered that the passenger side paint was scuffed or that the driver door stuck.

Sixty-two thousand dollars hardly seems like enough to buy a house. And if it is, Mara thinks, it probably won’t get her anything really nice. Like everything else in life, she puts her expectations about the states of the houses real low. Like subterranean low.

When they bypass the city and start taking nice little empty roads with sparsely placed houses, Mara starts wondering if they’re even in Shreveport anymore. She glances down at her phone and wonders if maybe Mrs. Simmons is secretly a murderer about to make off with her life savings. But then, Mara thinks two things at that. One, she would have seen it when the woman shook her hand and her life had flashed before Mara’s eyes. Two, even if the 59 year old woman did manage to kill her at least then her vampire troubles might be over.

Neither of which seem like much of a problem, really.

With that in mind, she settles back into her seat and allows herself to be driven into roads unknown. The world around her steadily bleeds out into the swampy bayou Louisiana is renowned for. It’s beautiful, scenic, and Mara allows herself to enjoy the view.

In total, it’s about a thirty-five minute drive from the office when Mrs. Simmons suddenly announces, “Here we are,” just as she turns and passes a tiny gate surrounded by Louisiana’s tallest cypresses.

“Okay when I said forest I didn’t mean jungle,” she murmurs as she watches with wide eyes the midday sun become blotted out by the heavy moss like leaves hanging down like water soaked ribbons. There are plants everywhere too, the names of which she’s never had reason to learn. Everything is green here, bursting with life, shrouded in some nameless magic from the old days. She feels as if she’s walked right into a fairy tale land.

Mara is already in love with it. She’ll buy whatever shit shack she’s shown if this is where it’s located.

The road continues on for a good seven minutes before it leads up to a gray wooden house. Mara isn’t entirely sure what she expects to find the house to look like, decrepit yes, rotting and broken windows, definitely. Haunted and eerie on account of the surroundings, maybe? She finds the exact opposite actually.

It’s tiny, the house. The porch is enclosed and seems to wrap itself all around the exterior of the house. The windows are large and bay shaped in a way that’s meant for sunlight to stream inward and light the inside. Green-green grass grows all around it, wrapping itself around the massively thick trunks of the trees lumbering around. There’s about a good half acre all around the house that’s been cleared away from the obstruction of a real jungle. There’s a carport to the left hand side of the house made of the same red aluminum roofing of the house.

In total, it’s cute, and in no way ostentatious. Drenched in that southern Louisianan culture she’s prone to seeing in lifestyle magazines.

She likes it immediately.

When they’re climbing out of the car Mrs. Simmons goes on to tell her, “It’s got two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen and a living room. About 1,500 square footage. It comes with about six and a half acres too, so you’ve got space for that quiet you were looking for.”

“Six acres?” she prompts, her steps faltering as they walked towards the steps of the porch, “Is that in my price range?”

“The house and property are marketed at 65 thousand,” Mrs. Simmons tells her as she opens the front porch and begins to unlock the front door.

 _65 thousand_.

Mara balks at the price. She’s never spent anything close to that. But then, she’s never bought a house before. Or land for that matter. She’s rented and always with people that weren’t always on the up and up. It helped her scrimp and save. It helped her line the car with hidden stashes.

That nameless thing in her slithers beneath her skin. Uncomfortable as she is to be caught in this new and awkward position.

As they enter, Mrs. Simmons goes about opening every curtain in the house. It floods the house in sunlight and allows Mara to take stock of the condition the house is in. That condition would be _perfect_.

The floors are dark wooden tiles that look as if they may have been black but have faded to a lighter shade with time. The walls are a nice soft shade of pewter that allows the light to bounce of them. The rest of the rooms follow that same theme except for the bathroom that is lined in white tile but paired with black tile accents.

In general the house looks much bigger than it did outside. Though, Mara thinks, that might be on account of it being unfurnished.

“The Fridge, stove and washer are included, of course,” Mrs. Simmons says as she leads her into the kitchen. The walls in here are a softer hue that reminds her of the color of concrete blocks. The appliances are white and look to be from the fifties but near enough to new conditions.

The kitchen back door leads out to the porch, still enclosed. Stepping past the amber colored door Mara looks out into the open back yard. She takes in the clear divide between tamed grassland bleed into the forest life after a certain mark. It’s spacious, the whole of it.

Bigger than she has it any need to be. She just needs a place to properly bar the vampires if and when the time comes. This is a house meant to be a home. This is a house meant for a growing family to spread out and live. This house was not anywhere near what she should be getting, no matter how much she liked it.

When she turns to her right she notices a dip in the earth right where a well-worn path leads down. And just as she’s about to ask Mrs. Simmons where that leads a dark skinned older man ambles up the path. Obscured, at first, by the way the land seemed to slip down lower.

“Ah!” Mrs. Simmons softly exclaimed behind her before opening the porch screen door. Her mind is not clouded in worry as she goes to address the stranger, “Bout time you showed! You live across the way and I managed to get here before you did!”

“Aye woman, I got better things to do than to wait hand and foot on yer orders!” the man called out, his voice rich and cheery despite the words. His accent is heavier than Mrs. Simmons.

With a quick scan, Mara determines that the man is in fact _Amos_ , Mrs. Simmons younger brother. And that he very much enjoys giving his sister a hard time when given the chance. Though, half his thoughts seem to be made in some foreign language. It’s hard to get a handle on them.

“Sure, sure. Get on with it, I brought someone here to look at the house,” Mrs. Simmons grouses, her fisted hands perched on her curved waist.

When the man, Amos clears the porch Mara is able to see him in full. He is significantly younger looking than Mrs. Simmons, probably still in his mid forties. His dark chocolate colored skin rich and lined only around his eyes and the ends of his smiling lips. He’s dressed in a clash of Louisiana western and southern comfort. His jeans are dirty at the hem where they over lay his well-worn brown boots. His soft blue long sleeve has been rolled up to his elbows to expose lean muscled forearms. In all, he is a tall lanky man whose smile lights up his handsome face.

Amos is a tall man, nearly as tall as Mr. Northman, so when he clears the porch he has to duck so that he doesn’t knock his head. The familiarity of this action catches her attention. This is not Amos’ first time entering the back porch.

“Amos Moreau,” he introduces himself with a brilliant smile of gleaming white teeth. His front teeth hold a small gap that makes his smile all the more charming. His white cowboy hat now sitting in his large life worn hands.

Taking the dark skinned hand outstretched towards hers, she smiles back and says, “Mara Rodriguez.”

“Mara?” he asks with a smile, his accent rolling her name, changing it slightly. Slowly his glittering brown eyes assessing her, “That’s a pretty name there cher.”

Shrugging Mara runs a hand through her hair to knock it out of the way. Feeling suddenly as if the air has gotten thicker, hard to pull in on account of someone pulling it away from her, “I guess so?”

“No, no,” Amos shakes his dark head as he places his right hand in his front pocket, “You can tell a lot from someone’s name. A name holds power girlie, strongest magic around. Even devils gotta heel when ya get their name.”

“Oh, you superstitious _imbécile_!” Mrs. Simmons admonishes him with a slap of her hand upon his shoulders. She is considerably shorter than her brother.

But they share enough characteristics that when put together one could easily see they were somehow related.

Something fast is said in French, at least Mara thinks its French, traded by Mrs. Simmons over to Amos. It sounds little more than an older sibling fighting with a younger one. It sounds harmless enough that Mara doesn’t bother to peek into their minds at it. In fact, she stopped checking them out the moment she’d walked into the house. Too absorbed in taking in the house in wonder to bother with Mrs. Simmons calm thoughts and whatever Amos was thinking.

To caught up in the anxiety of maybe not being able to buy the house in the end.

“So, _mon ami_ , you thinking of buying the house?” Amos asks after a while, his eyes fixed on her carefully.

Shrugging her shoulders she shifts under that searching gaze. Feeling as if though those eyes—hazel green—can see beyond her skin and to wait lay beneath. It is a disconcerting look. Unsettling her the longer they lay themselves upon her. For a moment, Mara wonders, if this is how people felt when she stared at them. Her lips quiet but her mind working it’s way to unravel their very minds.

She wonders how many people have shied away from her eyes whenever they deigned it fit to speak with her.

“I want to,” she tells him honestly, bound suddenly to admit the truth under that strange gaze. The air around her filling with some unnamable thing, “It’s beautiful here.”

“That it is cher. The land here is pure. The lake down that paths way,” here Amos juts a thumb over his shoulder. Indicating the path he himself had ambled up out of, “It fills when spring rains come and one look over it you’d think you were staring out into heavens gate.”

“There’s a lake?” surprise colors Mara’s face as she looks over to Mrs. Simmons.

“Oh yeah, it’s a swampy old thing, can’t legally call it a lake, to be honest,” Mrs. Simmons tells her with a weary smile, “The house and the woods take up at least three ‘nd a half acres. The rest the swamp takes up. It’s still considered land seeing as to how the swamp ebbs in the winter and fills around spring time.”

“It’s beautiful come spring and summer. I take my boat out and catch up some of the biggest catfish you’ve ever seen,” Amos tells her with a wide smile.

“Okay,” she nods, feeling herself a little uneven with everything.

Mara feels more than a little out of her depth with all this. This is a big decision. One she couldn’t just make willy-nilly, as some might say, on account of vampire business like she is. She needs to really think this through. The house is beautiful, the location amazing. It’s a dream home. A get-away bungalow of enchantment. But she doesn’t have 65 G’s to put down for it.

Well, she might, to be honest, but she was kind of hoping she wouldn’t have to use all of it. She needed the light to be on. The water put in. More importantly she needed to have something left over if push came to shove and she needed to jet the fuck out of Louisiana.

She feels her head swirl with all the con’s piling themselves in disorderly piles all over her head.

“Okay, well as beautiful as this place is, I think I’m way out of my depth here,” Mara tells them both honestly. Taking a step away as if that alone will bring her closer to Mrs. Simmons car and somehow away from the house in general.

“How do you mean?” Mrs. Simmons questions. Her dark brows knitted and her face pulled down in confusion.

“I’ve got the cash,” she says aloud, trying to back out without seeming like a flake, “But I didn’t want to use it all at once. I told you, I need the deed in my name like now. I can’t just drop that much cash without thinking ahead. I—I—”

It’d be easier to tell them why, Mara thinks. To tell them that she’s gotten into some trouble with Vampires and needs a place to keep them out and away. She could tell them the truth of her shit situation, but then, she’s not entirely sure where they stand on vampires.

Sure there were a hundred thousand vampire fans almost everywhere. And they, for the most part, were harmless. Most just wanted a picture or a tale of brushing past one and not getting killed. The rest wanted to fuck them.

It’s the anti-vampire wing nuts that were dangerous. Mara’s heard of the Fellowship of the Sun. She’s heard enough of their bombing of that Hotel and the way they burned fangbangers homes with people locked inside. Mara knows better than most that hate could make unimaginable things come to pass.

Mrs. Simmons and her brother Amos seemed like nice enough people. She doesn’t want them to suddenly toss her out because they’re against vampires and those who associate with them. Mara kind of needs Mrs. Simmons too though. To help her look for houses in a town she’s never so much as knew existed up until a couple of days ago. 

“I don’t know if my sister told you who’s house this was,” Amos suddenly says, his dark features pulled into a sort of quiet contemplation. His eyes, glow golden in the afternoon light, are soft and yet keen, “I had a friend who lived in this house, Otis was his name. Real _fils de pute_ when he wanted to be. But we grew up together, bought our houses close together when we were old enough and had enough saved up. We shared that lake between our lands. He was like a brother to me. He leaned on me pretty hard when his wife, Alice, passed on. And well, he got me through some rough years too.”

Mara has half a mind to bite out if this weird train of thought has an end. Being that she’s never found herself comfortable in normal situations in her life. But before she can, Amos continues on, unperturbed by her obvious expression:

“He left me his house when he passed. Left it to me in his will. Told me to sell it if the right person ever crossed my way,” Amos pauses then, looks around the back porch and then back over to her. His eyes, Mara can’t help but notice, seem to inexplicably shine a brighter shade of gold, “I think that person might be you, girlie.”

“Yeah?” she chuckles ruefully as she placed a white cig to her lips, “Well, I don’t know Amos. 65 thousand dollars would kinda break my bank a little. I wanna keep something…just in case.”

Just in case Mara ran into some trouble and needed to jet the fuck out of here. Just in case something went down, Mara needed some kind of cash on hand. She couldn’t just spend all her life’s savings in one go. It wasn’t exactly smart on Mara’s part.

“Well that’s fine, there’s house within your price range, we’ve got plenty of wriggle room!” Mrs. Simmons starts to say. Her dark hands already rummaging through her bag and pulling out those familiar manila files.

“Twenty-five thousand,” Amos suddenly says, effectively stilling Mrs. Simmons hands and Mara’s extended hand—mid ash.

“I—I’m sorry?” Mara chokes out at the same time Mrs. Simmons screeches out a ‘ _What!’_.

“You give me that and I’ll sign the deed over right now,” Amos tells her as casually as he was remarking on trading a bike for a skateboard.

“You’re shitting me,” Mara breathes out a disbelieving breath, her eyes flashing back between Mrs. Simmons and Amos.

“I was being serious cher, I been holding on to this here house for longer than I ought to have. Been waiting for the right person to come along. I’m done waiting, you want it, give me twenty-five thousand and I’ll sign what you need.”

“Amos!” Mrs. Simmons barks out before immediately devolving into some heavy twanged…French? It sounded vaguely like Spanish, Mara thought.

The two siblings argue with one another for the whole of three or four minutes. Rapid fire words passing over and past her head. She knows an argument when she sees it. Knows, with a quick peek in, that Mrs. Simmons is against selling the house for that low. Amos’ thoughts are swirled with righteous indignation.

And then, just as quickly as it had started, the argument abruptly dies when Amos makes a cutting motion with his hand. With an angry huff Mrs. Simmons crosses her arms over her impressive chest and glares out the porch screens. That seems to be the end of _that_.

“Twenty-five thousand.” Amos states firmly his eyes boring into hers awaiting her answer.

Pursing her lips Mara stares up at him. She’s never been able to stomach pity. She’s always kicked at it with abandon. The taste of someone’s pitiful compassion makes her want to vomit. Can’t stand the condescension hanging in their eyes.

This, this doesn’t exactly feel like that, Mara thinks. This is…this is her catching a lucky break, maybe? She’s not entirely sure. But Amos looks like a steady enough guy. There’s nothing insidious in his head. Nothing really ugly that jumped out to burn her eyes when her hand had touched his. He looks like a regular guy just trying to help someone out.

As unlikely as it might seem, Mara thinks, she’s stumbled onto a small patch of good luck. She’s not about to turn her nose up at it. She’s just as able and willing as her mother to snatch at a good deal when it’s presented to her. She tries, desperately, to choke down on the bile that _that_ certain thought causes to rise up.

“I’ll take it,” she says definitively, holding her hand out for him to shake.

When money is exchanged, Mrs. Simmons calls the necessary places and gets the water and light on before they ever reach her office. Mrs. Beatrice Simmons was a force to be reckoned with if she wished it. When the papers are before her—legal and binding—as intimidating as a devilishly handsome vampire, Amos writes out his full name and passes it over for her to take.

The empty white space over the New Owner line screams up at her.

Mara chokes back the inherent need to gulp. Sure she can punch a guys lights out no problem, can break bones and tear flesh till people can barely breath without blinking, but this, this is what tripped her up. Regular normal adult things. Normal people things. They felt so fucking foreign to her. She refuses to acknowledge the tremble in her hand as she scrawls out her full name.

Hating the kind of monster she is that she can’t even function like a regular adult when doing something as normal as buying a home for herself.

“Congratulations,” Mrs. Simmons says with reluctant smile lighting up her face, “You just bought yourself a little slice of heaven.”

Laughing, Amos pats her crudely on her shoulder—effectively jerking her forward in a rough movement—and barks out, “Welcome to the neighborhood cher. Think now you’ve got just enough room for your devils to run wild.”

Past the rushing of her racing heart pulsing in her ears and anxiety clogging up her throat, Mara barely has enough time to think: _What the hell’s that supposed to mean?_

* * *


	7. Show me a line I can cross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Would you believe me if I told you it is because I missed you?”
> 
> Mara snorts inelegantly as she roughly runs a hand through her hair, “No the fuck I wouldn’t.”

* * *

There’s music in the air made up of angry loud noises. The words Mara can’t quite make out because it’s all one mad scramble of screams. The music is no way shape or form good but it pairs nicely with the heavy and ugly theme of this dive bar. There’s a large crowd gathered at the foot of some makeshift stage. All of them are young, pierced, dressed in black and reeking of hate. They thrash and bang their heads against the heavy metal guitar rifts. Their fists and feet striking out to spill blood as they collectively ride the insanity in the air.

The atmosphere, though tame in all reality, is enough to ebb some of the growing tension in Mara. Not enough to sate that god awful hunger in her, but it puts her less on edge as she has been these past couple of days.

Four days into having purchased her new home and Mara hasn’t seen hide nor tail from that blonde beautiful undead bastard. And though it should be somewhat relieving, it isn’t. Not knowing when he’ll show or why fills Mara with anxiety and anxiety has almost always bled out into anger in her. With that in mind, she’d gone about looking for some kind of outlet.

Her monster, always so hungry, was starting to scratch just underneath her skin. It was fueled, still, by whatever traces of vampire blood floating around in her. And that blood, that fucking blood, made every thought coming her way explode with such intensity it made Mara want to bare her teeth.

As pretty and as wide open as her new home was, it felt like Mara had caged herself in. She’d half worn a path into the screened in porch. When her cigarettes had run out, she’d gotten dressed and headed out into the midday light. Around five, she’d bumped into some locals who told her of some show later on.

In hindsight, Mara should’ve checked. She should have dipped her black hands into their mind and drained their minds of information like she normally does. But she’d been itching, like a fiend, for some kind of violence—in whatever form—to expel that mad energy that came from that vampire. If she had checked, before following those guys out here, she would’ve known that these locals were just a couple of kids. Kids who’d borrowed their grandmothers car to come see some little local band and mosh.

And while Mara may look like some fresh-faced college freshman with her punk rock attire, she wasn’t into the whole live music scene. Not really, not for some time. Not since she was sixteen. Not since she found her preferred taste of poison.

Busted knuckles, bloody lips and broken bones.

So she’s been sitting at the bar, nursing a cheap beer one after another, for a little over an hour. The man behind the bar, _Nick_ , has been trying—but failing in every attempt so far—to get her number. With every attempt, she bares her teeth a little more. Can’t help but feel like bashing his face in every time their fingers brush. His thoughts are a swirl of sexual perversions. He wants so badly to see her on her knees it makes her beast roar.

“So how are you liking the show?” Nick asks, his smile crooked and eyes hooded.

He’s an average looking man, all things considered. Covered in tattoos that look crude and oddly placed from the tips of his fingers up towards his neck. Nothing about him made him stand out in a crowd.

But then, Mara thinks, she’s just seen a literal god a few days ago. So maybe she’s being a little biased here.

“I don’t,” Mara tells him over the roar of the crowd.

A strained smile spreads over Nick’s more common features; his dark brown hair has been slicked back like he’s straight out of a black and white James Dean movie. Only, you know, _punkish_ and ‘ _not’_ mainstream.

As much as Nicky wanted to not be, he was a hipster. Only ever followed the trends. Mara could tell from his thoughts.

“Oh, well, it’s a good band you know. They’re local talent, but they’ve got a good feel to ‘em,” Nick tells her.

His mind running down all the things he wants to tell her but won’t because he wants to get laid.

Shrugging, Mara states with an eye roll, “Calling them talent’s a bit much.”

“Thrash metal aint your scene, huh?” Nick quips with a smirk as he leans across the counter top. His black muscle tee puts his lean tattooed muscles on display under the hazy yellow light of the bar.

Again, they aren’t shit compared to Northmans’. That fucker’s biceps were thicker than Mara’s fucking head.

“Whiny white boy angst aint my scene. I mean, shit,” she says as she brings her newest beer towards her, simultaneously pushing away her empty, “They’ve been cryin’ about what this whole hour? Killing their crush because she’s just not that into them? Wearing black as a ‘ _fuck you to the system’_? Ou, _real edgy_.”

The sarcasm in her voice practically drips off her words.

Shrugging his own shoulders, Nick nods a smirk wide on his lips, “That’s about it.”

“They just sound like angry little emo’s wailing on guitars with their limp dicks,” Mara grouses. Her eyes pulling away from the bartenders over to the enthusiastic crowd, “They sound like every self absorbed little white boy band ever.”

“Now, if I didn’t know any better,” Nick yells out, to be heard over the wail of several sour notes, “it’d sound to me like you had a problem with white boys.”

I t might sound like it, but she didn’t. Mara had beef with any fucker that came out her regardless of their race. She’s just saying what she’s saying cause she knows the dude trying to fuck her likes them.And Mara’s all about pushing buttons when she’s in a shit mood.

Pursing her lips, Mara slaps down at least twenty-five dollars for her running tab and pulls her leather jacket back on. She leaves it unzipped because the bar is hot and her red plaid long sleeve is of thicker material than she’d like. Pulling away from the bar Mara tells the man with a shark grin of her own—all sharp teeth and razor edges:

“Nah, I just can’t stand their pussy assed rhetoric.”

With that, she pushes her way through the crowd towards the back exit. The fresh night air of Louisiana practically slaps her across her face as she exits the bar. When the door behind her closes, a strange empty silence hits her. After an hour of deafening shit music, it serves to jar her for a moment.

Lazily, she takes a couple of steps into the back way. Her eyes attempt to adjust to the shit lampposts at either end of the alley. After a minute, they do. Her hands rummage through her jackets inner pockets until they unearth her cigs and her lighter. It isn’t until a lit cigarette dangles from her black painted lips does she hear the back door open.

The clang of noise is abrupt and harsh until the door falls shut again. Listlessly, Mara chances an idle glance over her shoulders. She doesn’t necessarily care to find the face of whoever came out but she turns anyway. Who she finds brings her up a little short.

Nick, the bartender, stands there in his green and black plaid skinnies and black muscle shirt. He stands tall in his punk attire with a lazy smile spread on his lips.

There’s a rabid growl growing in the base of her throat at the sight of him. Now, it didn’t take a mind reader to know what Nick had been chasing after the whole night. She wasn’t blind to the way he had insistently plied her with beer the whole night. Hoping she’d slip past buzzed and into a far more dangerous state.

And seeing as to how Mara actually was a mind reader, she knew exactly what Nick wanted and why he had chased her out here. One last attempt to get into her pants.

“You calling it a night?” Nick questions as he ambled slow and careful from the door to the side of the wall she’s perched up against.

Shrugging, Mara ashes her cig and tells him in a drawl, “Not much going on here tonight. Figured I’d find a place with decent music at least.”

“I get off in an hour, why don’t you stick around till then.”

“And why would I do that?”

“C’mon baby,” Nick’s whisper is husky and in a low drawl that would have been enticing if Mara hadn’t been subjected to his thoughts the whole night, “I know why you hung around the bar all night.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

There’s something burning in her veins that is steadily building into a fire. If Mara were to kick it just right the embers would catch. She’s only asking cause she’s somewhat interested in what the man thinks she’s after.

“C’mon baby, don’t play games. I know that look in your eye,” Nick half purrs into the side of her face. He’s gotten close— _too close_ —to her. His hands, tattooed with random images, have gripped her left hip and have started to trail up her body uninvited, “You’re _aching_ for it.”

“Yeah?” she drawls, nice and slow, her words laced in white smoke, “What am I aching for?”

With a huff, Nick traces the tip of his nose from her left temple down to the edge of her jaw. His breath—hot and humid—fans across her sweaty skin in an uncomfortable manner, “You’re aching for a good fuck.”

And, well, yeah. _Maybe_.

Mara hasn’t gotten a good fuck since she met that Were down in Amarillo. So yeah, maybe she is aching for some of that. Gods and Goddesses fucking knows she could use one after all the bullshit she’s had to put up with these past couple of days. But mainly, Mara knows, she’s aching for something darker and bloodier. It’s been roaring in her veins since she met that undead god. Since his blood had seeped into her flesh and bone. She wants to break bones, wants hers to break too. She wants to spill blood and have hers gush from open wounds. The animal in her is writhing in the pit of her belly to be released onto something, _someone_.

It croons into her ear songs made of carnage.

Taking in a deep drag, until it burns, Mara tells the man with as much disdain as she can summon within herself, “No thanks.”

Her answer and clear disinterest does not seem to faze Nick, “C’mon baby, I can make it feel good.”

At that, Mara snorts a laugh—half in amusement and half disbelief. Pushing the man away with the two fingers pinching her cigarette, “I seriously doubt that Nicky.”

Something like anger and embarrassment flash bright and hot across Nicks face. His average features pulling into something ugly and slightly dangerous, “So you’re one of those huh?”

One dark brow raised, smoke spilling from her mouth, Mara’s follow up question goes unasked but not unheard.

“A _cock tease_. You’re just like all the other sluts in there, you know. Flirting all night but never willing to put out at the end of the night.” He tells her with a hard smile and a dark tone.

Pursing her dark painted lips, Mara digs her two fingers harder into the mans chest until inches of space are finally relented. With a sneer she tells him:

“Trust me, Nicky, you don’t wanna know the kind of girl I am.”

In one easy movement, Nick slaps her fingers off and away from his chest and crowds her back into the dirty wall behind her. Her head cracks hard against the unforgiving brick. Her jacket and shirt ride up so that her left hip rubs raw against the stone.

The flare of pain ignites the gasoline lined blood rushing in her veins.That fire has been kicked and has caught.

“Oh, _sweetheart_ , you don’t wanna know the kind of guy _I_ am,” Nick breathes out across her face as he grips her neck. With a firm push, he presses his hardening dick against her left hipbone.

Revulsion and fury struggle against one another to be the top contender within her.

That itch Mara had felt since she walked out of that damnable vampire bar finally pulls and stretches. Mara can feel fire licking its way up every limb in her body until it builds— _raging_ —in her chest.She feels that otherness in her skin unfurl like the wide gaping maw of a Venus fly trap. The pink fleshy insides lined in something like acid.

Before either one of them can take in a breath, Mara pulls her head back as far as it’ll go and snaps it forward. Her forehead smashes against Nick’s nose. She feels the crack and ultimate crunch of his nose breaking against her skull. In a strangled shout, Nick releases her and stumbles backward.

“What the _fuck_! You fucking bitch! You broke my fucking nose!” he shouts in pain. His hands clasping his crimson stained nose.

“You should learn to keep you hands to yourself,” Mara tells him with a wild smile, her lips barely closing over the butt of her cigarette.

Nick shouts something, but Mara can’t hear it over the fact that she’s shrugging out of her jacket. Her dwindling cigarette pinched tight between her lips. The well-worn leather creaking in the still of the alleyway. Heedlessly, she tosses her jacket down before rolling up her sleeves.

“We gunna do this or not Nicky-boy? I don’t got all night,” Mara taunts before flicking the butt at his chest.

And Nick, Nick who smiled and played the progressive little rocker all night—who thought it was pretty fucking _rad_ she came to shows stag because it was a new era and fuck _misogyny_ —didn’t need to be told twice. He rushes at her. His hands curled into fists and swinging wildly.

The fight is nothing note worthy. Nick is shit at throwing punches. Just like he was shit at serving drinks. He lands a couple of hits, one across her face—busting her own nose—and a couple to the side of her left ribs. The pain that blooms makes her laugh as she rains down fury and chaos. She can feel her blood singing—roaring—as she slides over the brick of the dirty floor. When she’s tossed against the harsh metal of a nearby dumpster, she grins and whoops before kicking Nick’s knee out and strikes him across the face. His skin splitting open on account of how many rings she’s got on.

When it’s all said and done, Mara is left grinning and panting for cool night air. She can feel blood running down both nostrils. Her back, ribs and knuckles pulse in that heady thrum of pain. The animal in her, that otherness she was born with, writhing like it’s begging to do more. Nick is left splayed out in the middle of the alleyway, just two steps away from her. Trash tangled in his long legs. She shamelessly basks in the rush of adrenaline currently coursing through her body at a fight well won. Her body is humming in that all too familiar song.

Burning like she might actually catch fire if she hopes for it enough.

Closing those two steps, Mara drops down to her haunches and allows her little head game to spill out some more. Her mind actively reaching out and into Nick’s brain rather than gleaning info all night. He’s awake, despite how he plays dead, and she smiles—ugly and wide—at the realization.

Grinning she informs the half unconscious man, “You know, you shoulda listened to me Nicky _baby_ ,” Mara can’t help but sneer the endearment down at him, “I might have been _aching_ for something, but it _wasn’t_ your dick.”

Without an ounce of hesitation, Mara rummages through his too tight pants and unearths his wallet. Pulling out what cash lay inside, she grimly notes the fucker doesn’t so much as have a fucking jimmy. Tossing the wallet onto his prone body, Mara spits down at the poor excuse:

_“Hijo de puta.”_

And it’s as she’s taking stock of the mans swollen and torn face that a strange feeling prickles her. Something cold and distinctly other slides across her fire-heated skin. With her head game happily slithering about, she’s able to catch the blimp hidden in the shadows.

An empty cold void. Like a radio running on a dead channel. Like water swirling beneath frozen ice.

A vampire. 

Slowly, Mara stands. Her dark eyes trained on where she knows the undead currently stands. She doesn’t know who is there but she grits her teeth and growls out, “How does this work? I gotta say your name three times before your step into the light?”

Appearing like a demon made of mans darkest fantasy’s, the vampire steps forward, into the shitty orange light hanging overhead. It’s not the vampire she expects—that being Mr. Northman—but the other one. The green-eyed viper. The one who had held her mothers chain. The one who smiled like a murderess.

Tonight, the vampiress is dressed in red corset with black trimmings. It pushes her more than modest breasts upward and outward. The sight is enough to make Mara tremble. Her skirt is some type of black leather and pencil thin. It sticks to her perfectly hour glass shape curves. It’s a beautiful mixture of BDSM meets upscale Dominatrix. She’s even got the tallest blood red heels Mara has ever seen. Her platinum blonde hair has been pulled up into a tight ponytail, braided, allowing her gorgeous face to be on full display.

Her lipstick, Mara blithely notes, matches her heels perfectly.

The female vampire was almost as tempting as Mr. Northman and had Mara met her in any other situation she’d be tempted to try her hand. But, as always, Mara’s got shit luck. Still, Mara’s blood is running hot tonight—with the taste of her own blood on her tongue and Nicks lining her fists—she can’t help but half pant at the image of the vampiress.

Lust pools wild and savage at the pit of her belly.

Mara’s always had a thing for women who could kill with a single look. She wonders if the vampire rolled that way, if she did, maybe Mara could try her hand some time. Though, Mara doubts, if she’ll make it out of that in one piece.

That pretty little face, jail baity as it was, was the type to swallow people whole and spit out clean picked bones.

“Well, if you don’t win Queen of whatever BDSM pageant you’re attending, I’ll fucking riot,” Mara tells the vampire, honestly. Because, _seriously_ , the visage of that blonde vampiress was enough to make gods fall to their knees.

With a sneer, the female vampire gives her a tired once over, “Not to worry, _sweetheart_ , I’m a shoe in.”

The smile that stretches over Mara’s face is jagged but not ill intended. With a rough movement, she wipes the blood still trickling under her nose with the sleeve of her shirt. It is then that Mara takes note of herself. Her shirt has been torn open. Her red plaid shirt is hanging on by the only two remaining buttons at the bottom. And that’s cool, not like it wasn’t her favorite fucking button up or anything. Silently, Mara turns to retrieve her jacket where she’d tossed it.

When it’s back on her person, a lit cig pinched between her lips, she asks, “You looking for me? Or just out for a scenic stroll?”

“Your master has summoned you,” the green-eyed devil announces easily. Her pale eyes trained on every move Mara so much as makes.

Now, it might be that Mara’s animal is still on that rush of adrenaline, but those simple words rankle and twist some nameless thing in her. Her lips tip downward into a frown as a growl builds in her chest. She can’t help the involuntary tick to bare her teeth in her anger.

“My _master_?” she repeats the words and instantly hates the taste of the word on her tongue. So she spits it out onto the floor between the vampire and herself.

If that insults the vampire, she says nothing. A dark and wicked smile tips the ends of her crimson lips upwards. The half smile is as dangerous as the glint in her emerald gaze. But, in the end, Mara’s still got her tongue in her head, so she counts it as a win.

With a disgusted click of her tongue she nods and heads out of the alleyway towards her jeep. It’s a slow and lazy walk that winds up taking longer than it ought to. And it’s only by the grace of her head game that she knows whether the green eyed viper is following her. Because, like a goddamn wraith, the woman doesn’t so much as make a whisper of sound. Her heels, pointed to daggers as they are, do not click against the ground. The material of her clothes does not creak or cry.

It’s almost like that undead bitch is gliding through the air.

When Mara gets to her car, she climbs in wordlessly and only pauses in pushing her key into the ignition when the passenger side door closes. Glancing sideways, she takes in the vampire currently in her car and raises a dark brow in silent question.

“I assume you know the way?” the beautiful vampire prompts in a lazy drawl. Jade eyes boring holes into Mara’s head all the while.

“Yeah,” Mara tells her around the end of her cigarette, the engine growling to life, “Kinda hard to forget.”

When they’re pulling out of the parking lot and past the alleyway where she’d left Nick, Mara notices the slowly growing crowd. The smile that slips across her face is impish and joy filled as she hears—through her open window—people shouting about ambulances and police. And Mara, Mara laughs at that because she’s just that kind of petty.

For however long it takes them to reach the red lights on the street, Mara wonders if maybe she should put something on to kill the dead silence in her car. Because she highly doubts the green eyed vamp was the kind to entertain small talk. The green-eyed devil had an air about her that said she saw everyone else as scum beneath her expensive heels. And Mara’s inclined to believe the bitch.

So she’s mildly surprised when it is broken by the vampire herself:

“Not that I particularly _care_ , but what exactly was that about?”

Glancing sideways, Mara ashes her cig before she tells the vampire with a shrug of her shoulders, “I was _aching_ for it.”

Her lips spread wide into a shit-eating thing that further tears at the bleeding cut on her swollen bottom lip.

The vampire doesn’t ask her to elaborate and Mara doesn’t necessarily wish to, in all honesty. So she jams her cig back into her mouth and picks a song on random to drown away the sounds of sirens racing past her. When Alice and Chains starts playing she grins wide because, of fucking course, more of that white boy shit. Mara laughs when the vampire glares in her direction for turning up the volume.

Like she’d said, she didn’t have a problem with it, she’d just been fucking with the dude.

X—X—X

Apparently, Fangtasia is a regular hotspot for fang-bangers to cruise. When Mara pulls up, behind the club as instructed, the entire parking lot is full. Even the empty slot across the street is packed. There’s a line of people out front, waiting to be let in, almost a mile long. They crowd the whole of the sidewalk.

Distantly, Mara thinks, the club had looked entirely different when she had been here a couple of days ago. Desolate and eerie, those would be the words she’d be pressed to use to describe the atmosphere then. Shrouded in mystery that no legitimate club had any right to hold.

Tonight it is entirely changed. The blares of the neon lights are on, the accent red lights flashing welcome to those brave enough to pass the threshold. There’s a low rumble in the air from excited voices all-speaking as one. The ground shakes with the bass of whatever music is being played inside. The very air hanging in the night sky practically sparking with their collective anticipation.

When Mara enters, following the sway of a full ass wrapped tightly in leather—and she tries really hard to keep her eyes upward—the inside is infinitely changed as well.

For one, it’s fucking packed with people in rubber suits and leather. Those who aren’t are half naked. Those who aren’t half naked might as well go for it. If the female vampire was upscale BDSM then these people were EBay BDSM. No doubt most of what they were wearing was pilfered from some Halloween getup hidden somewhere in their closets. It’s all very tacky.

Some kind of EDM trash sounds are blaring overhead.

There’s raised platforms now, that hadn’t been there when she had first entered, with performers dancing in fishnet get ups. Some aren’t human, moving with supernatural grace that leaves her feeling unnerved rather than entertained.

In total, it feels and looks like a cliché vampire bar. In that it’s all blood red this and black hued that. But the patrons eat it up. They _ohh_ and _ahh_ as they vie for the undead’s attention. Mara can’t help but scoff at the entranced expressions that the green-eyed devil leaves in her wake. Because, honestly, the vampiress need only crook her finger and legions of humans would crawl for her over burning hot coals.

The vampiress didn’t even have to work for a meal. A whole line would form if the vampire so much as flashed her fangs in invitation. It’s then that she learns the vampires name, through the fevered minds of the people that watch her go, Pamela.

The blonde vampiress stops at the steps of the raised dais Mr. Northman sits upon. His large bulk resting like some kind of god listlessly accepting offerings for the night. Mr. Northman tonight is dressed like the cover model of some leather fetish magazine. He’s donned black leather pants that have no business being wrapped around those thickly muscled thighs. He’s forgone a shirt and instead put on some kind of strange harness. The type of which can only be used for sex. It lovingly wrapped his broad chest and washboard abs. All of it held together by a ring nestled just between his impressive pecs.

It’s fucking _obscene_ and by the heated not-so-whispers around her, both aloud and in their minds, the crowd is _loving_ it. Mara herself is flooded with lust at the sight too. She is, after all, a healthy 25-year-old girl.

And, as previously stated, she has been without a good fuck for a couple of days now.

When Pamela starts walking up those steps—the same steps her mother had been chained upon—Mara stops and squarely plants her feet beneath her. She’s not entirely sure what’s supposed to go down tonight and she’s willing herself to be prepared for whatever comes flying out at her.

In the circles Mara used to run, there were more than enough horror stories about vampires. Both from were’s and normies.

When Pamela leaves, having whispered something or the other in Mr. Northman’s ear, she sends Mara a brilliant smile that was all fang. After that, nothing happens.

Mr. Northman simply sits on his throne, laughing eyes trained on her, never uttering a word. And she, well, she meets his stare with one of defiance. With a deliberate tilt to her head, chin up, she steadies the line of her shoulders and waits in silence. Mara liked to meet her head on and was loathe admitting defeat even with her back against the wall.

The urge to smoke under the tension starts to gnaw at her as the minutes drag out. She feels her monster blood in her begin to stir the more it stretches underneath the ugly thump of shitty music. She can feel her face get pulled downward into a snarl that she knows isn’t a pretty thing to look at. There’s a familiar itch in her skin that makes it feel like she’s burning up and ready to explode. But she stubbornly forces her self still.

Because, it hadn’t been her who had decided to come here. No, she’d been _summoned_. And if that was the case, well, then Mr. Northman could break the ice whenever he wished.

Cocking a hip out, Mara glares up at him and issues the most put upon sigh she can summon up. Crossing her arms firmly across her chest, the material of her leather jacket cool against her heated skin where her flannel was ripped open.

“Hello _Mara_ ,” the blonde ass half purrs down at her. His eyes glittering in the low light. His lips tipped upward in a tiny smile.

Her name rolls off the vampires lips like something drenched in sin. She’s never heard her name ever be uttered like that. Like it was both an invitation to something and something built to damn a person. It makes something wild—distinctly other—swirl in dark pleasure.

With a growl bubbling in her throat, Mara sneers up at him, “You called me?”

“I did,” the blue-eyed devil smiles down at her.

“Why?”

“Would you believe me if I told you it is because I missed you?”

Mara snorts inelegantly as she roughly runs a hand through her hair, “No the fuck I wouldn’t.”

Heaving a dramatic sigh of his own, Mr. Northman drops the hand currently resting at his temple and tells her, “Pity.”

“Why am I here?” Mara repeats, her tone hard edged even as she tried to keep it nice and leveled. Over her shoulder, she tosses a glance around the club. Her eyes catching on the way humans degraded themselves for the attention of a dancing vampire. Her face twists in disgust at the sight, “This ain’t exactly my idea of a good time.”

“So I hear, my childe has informed me of your night time proclivities,” Mr. Northman tosses back at her, his eyes burning as he smirked in her direction.

Mara watches as those eyes slowly rake over her face, taking stock of the bruise Mara can feel thumping ugly under her left eye and the cut over her swelling nose. She watches as the vampire then lets his eyes slip down over what exposed skin she presented. The path they follow burns as if gasoline lined and struck to light.

The smirk that spreads across her lips isn’t altogether real or fake. It’s jagged and brutal as Mara spits at him, “Is that why I’m here? You gunna tell me to lay off beating peoples faces in?”

“Well,” Mr. Northman starts, leaning out of his seat and over to her. His voice—like liquid sin—drops down to a rough roll, “It wouldn’t do for my newest pet to wind up caged like some animal, would it?”

And god, how Mara hates that word, _pet_. She hates how easily it falls from his lips to claim her entirely. She hates the way she can feel phantom chains wrapping themselves around her wrists and ankles at the sound of that word being uttered.

Everything in her wants to snap her teeth and shove that word right back into those damnable pink lips. She wants to roar and rage that she isn’t some fucking pet. That she’s not a thing to be owned. But when Mara looks into those eyes—pit less and deadly—she knows that to be a damn lie.

Mara may not have a collar around her neck like a prized dog, but it was only by Mr. Northman’s fucking grace. They both knew who was right and who was wrong here.

Pursing her dark and busted lips, Mara snarls into that beautiful face, “Then why am I here?”

Mr. Northman, beautiful and dangerous like a cobra snake, sinks back effortlessly in his large throne. His azure eyes casting out into the sea of people all vying for his attention listlessly. Mara may not know him outside of a handful of hours, but even she can spot cold indifference upon his face. The way he sees through people like they weren’t people at all. Like a king attending court and being presented with the cattle that would be served at his next feast.

It was… _intimidating_ , Mara thought. To be able to spot such a callous expression on what she knew to be a cold blooded killer. After all, one didn’t get to be as old as Mr. Northman without killing a hell of a lot of people along the way.

“I thought it best for my subjects to meet what is mine,” he tells her in a low rumbling voice. His eyes out on the crowd and nowhere near hers.

 _Oh_ , Mara thinks, loosely and a bit detached, _that made sense_.

Everyone and their mothers knew Vampires were renowned for being possessive shits.

With a wave of his large pale hand, Mr. Northman idly tells her, “Sit.”

Mr. Northman does not add anything else after that. Instead, he seems to sink further into his pretentious throne. Looking utterly boneless without a single care in the world perched upon his lick-able shoulders.

And Mara knows he means the little backless seat by his right hand side, but, something in her refuses to let her legs move. Instead, she slowly unwinds her arms and climbs up at least halfway up the steps and sits her ass on the stairs. She’s got her booted feet kicked out in front of her in a lazy sprawl while her elbow stayed hooked on a step to keep her up. It’s not entirely comfortable, but Mara’s sat on worse.

Dark eyes running over the crowd, Mara spots the angry and jealous expressions that skitter among the club goers faces. There’s shock and confusion in their eyes while their minds run wild with question. Half of them want to know who she is while the other half want her gone. None of them think she’s quite up to snuff to be seated upon Mr. Northman’s steps.

Idly, and a bit pettily, Mara wishes she’d sat up on that seat the vampire fuck had offered her. Just to piss them all off a little more.

“You got a lot of angry fans out there,” Mara casually tells the vampire at her back.

“Oh?”

With a smirk slipping onto her lips, Mara rummages through her pockets until she pulls out her pack. Only when one is lit does she tell him, “Yeah man, they all think you can do better than little ol’ me. Half of them are convinced you’re prolly gonna gut me for sitting on your steps, though.”

“What else can you hear?” Mr. Northman prompts, his voice low and half uninterested, like he doesn’t care either way.

Shrugging, Mara ashes her smoke and lays her pack and zippo by her hip, “Not much, everyone’s just looking to get fucked or fanged.”

And Mara’s not even lying about that. So many of the thoughts she hears have to do with people getting their dicks wet or getting fed upon. It’s fucking sad. Not a rational fucking thought in the place.

“ _Mara_ ,” he calls out for her, her name pulling and twisting in a way she’s never heard it be said. It’s for that, that she turns her head and looks up at him. When she spots him and the bemused expression he wears, she regrets turning to look, “Come sit by me.”

Suspicion makes her narrow her eyes as she mumbled over the butt of her cig, “ _Why_?”

“Because I’d very much like to get to know my newest telepath,” he tells her with a smile that was sharp and predatory.

And, _fuck_ , Mara wishes that smile, that fucking deep rumbling voice, didn’t have any kind of affect on her but it _did_. The otherness in her swirls until it blooms heavy and tight in her chest. It rears its head up as if it is being called from the pits of her. Aching to follow while baring its teeth.

With clear reluctance, she pulls herself up to her feet and does as she’s asked. Not because she wants to but because, what fucking choice did she have in the matter?

“Wha’do ya wanna know?” Mara tosses out the moment she drops heavy onto the wooden bench.

Head turned in her direction, blue-blue eyes sitting heavy on her face, Mr. Northman asks, “How long have you been able to read minds?”

Frowning over her cigarette, Mara shrugs her shoulders and mumbles, “For as long as I can remember.”

“So you were born a telepath then?”

“Pretty much.”

“How many of their minds can you read?” Mr. Northman carefully questions, his eyes gleaming like he’s hunting for something Mara can’t pin point yet.

“All of them, none of them, it depends,” Mara indelicately tells him. Her eyes flickering away from his to run over the crowd gawking at her. She can spot the eyes of the undead now pinned upon her face. Watching and listening from where they stand scattered across the club.

Their pale faces standing out against the cake faced masses. Vampires weren’t pale like everyone thought they’d be, like movies had promised them to be. There’s was a glow not unlike the shine of the moon. Careful, brilliant, and cold. They stood out as much as they blended in.

“On what exactly?”

“On my fucking mood,” Mara gruffly answers him, her eyes snapping back to his gorgeous pale face.

Which, Mara notes, is the damn truth. There were days, moments, when Mara felt less like she was burning up and more like a banked fire that other people’s thoughts just flowed into her. Like water over rocks on a riverbank. They flowed through her mind in a static haze of mindless chatter. Then, there were the days—which happened more often than not—where Mara was burning with all the intensity of a wild fire. On those days, other people’s thoughts just never came near her. Burned away by the shit mood she was in.

Either way, she’s never had an issue rifling through people’s thoughts since she was a kid. It got easier the older she got.

And as if to prove her point, someone’s thoughts catch in her head and ring.

_‘Not enough vamps. Won’t be as big as we wanted.’_

Pulling her eyes away from the vampire, Mara casts her gaze outward into the crowd. Like pulling on a loose cord until she could find it’s source, Mara finds the face the odd thought belonged to.

Copper haired and green eyed, the man stands by a group of others. Though they’re dressed in simple clubbers gear, something about the way they hold their bodies sets them apart. It’s in their posture, she thinks, that shows they’ve got some kind of tactical training. Probably, cops. With hardly any trouble, Mara rifles through the redheaded man’s thoughts until she finds something note worthy.

“You see that redheaded fucker there?” Mara jerks her head over to where the man stood against the Far East wall. Only when Mr. Northman is looking does she continue on, “He’s got some kind of smoke bomb thing, silver based. They’re gonna set it off in a bit. Want’s y’all to fang out and attack people so they can get it on camera and post it on their anti-fang website.”

“Do they?” Mr. Northman drawls, nice and slow. His mountain like body shifting as he made some slow motion with his hand.

In a blink of an eye, four different vampires surround the copper haired man and strong-arm them until they’re out of the club entirely.

Dropping her dead butt to the floor to snuff out with the heel of her boot, Mara says, “They got a couple of buddies in the restroom setting up hidden camera’s and shit to catch one of y’all feeding on someone.”

With a grin on his lips, Mr. Northman nods his head and tells her with laughter in his eyes, “As I said, I find telepaths to be very useful creatures.”

Lazily, Mara runs her hands through her disheveled hair. It’d been knocked loose on account of the back alley shuffle she’d had. When she’s done running her fingers through it, she asks:

“Whadd’ya’ll do with people like that? Kill’em?”

“Would it bother you very much if my answer was yes?” Mr. Northman prompts, his eyes trained on her as if trying to unravel her mind in a single glance.

“Not really,” Mara tells him honestly as she rested her weight on her elbows upon her knees, “But, you probably shouldn’t kill these assholes. They’re cops and they got a fail safe plan in motion if they don’t show up tonight for some kind of check in.”

“Do they?”

“Hey, man, believe me or don’t, ain’t gonna be my ass who gets thrown in jail,” Mara laughs out as she lit yet another cigarette.

In a flash, Pamela reappears by Mr. Northman’s side. Her dainty arms crossed over her chest as she wore an agitated expression, “They’re cops. We found badges on them.”

“Do as you’d like Pamela, but I never want to see them in my establishment again,” Mr. Northman tells her with finality.

Grinning like a shark that’s smelled a drop of blood, Pamela merely mumbles, “What fun.”

Issuing a low laugh, Mara ducks her head down to stare at some pretty little dancer currently eye-fucking her. With a quick peek inside, Mara knows the red dressed girl was interested. And Mara, whose got nothing else to do for the night, figures it’s a good enough thing to pass the time.

So she gets to her feet to enter the throng of dancing people. But as she passes the two undead blondes, she says:

“Whatever you do, make sure a dude does it. They’re homophobic assholes.”

And with that she slips into the crowd hunting down that pretty little face with mean eyes. It’s easy enough to do since most skitter away from her after they’ve just seen her on Northman’s throne. When she slides her hands onto smooth ebony skin Mara forgets why she’s been called down here at all. Nose full of coconut oil and a thick toned thigh between her own Mara grins wide and hungry.

“Friends call me El’,” the glowing goddess tells her with a sharp smile. Her hands snake their way down Mara’s back until they pull her flush against her body. Hot breath fanning against her face, El asks, “What do they call you?”

Grinning, at both all the hungry lustful thoughts spilling from the girl currently trying to fuck her in the middle of a dance club and the fact that someone thinks she’s got friends, Mara growls into the woman’s ear, “What’d you wanna call me?”

El’s smile grows wider as they swayed to the beat of the music spilling over head. Her hands wander, her hips grind down, as she dipped her head and whispered against Mara’s parted lips, “Trouble.”

Barking out a laugh, Mara seals her lips over the girls waiting red lips. Something bitter like tequila spreads across Mara’s mouth as she tangled her tongue with the other woman’s. As they kiss, biting into each other, Mara feels the way those hands slip into the her torn open shirt. They slip over her heated skin and clutch tight. Something desperate lines those hands as they pull her close and tight.

Excitement fires down the length of Mara’s spine. It sinks bone deep enough that that otherness stirs to life in full. The hunger that fight had failed to sate chase down that excitement. A tight clench forms in the pit of Mara’s belly. A familiar throb forms between her legs as she rocked back and forth to the motion of El’s snaking body. That throb makes her want to clamp her legs tight on that thigh and grind down. To relieve the building tension and chase something half pleasurable.

For all she knows, the dance could be as long as thirty minutes, or maybe hours. A dance filled with hungry wet kisses smeared over lips and down the length of each of their throats. She’s not sure which. Only, that eventually, Mara hooks her hand on El’s face and pulls the girls face away from hers to pant.

Looking all kinds of glassy eyed, lustful and ready, El grabs hold of the hand on her face and leads her off the club floor. And Mara doesn’t need to be a mind reader to know where this is going. But it helps. She knows El is revved up, ready to go. She knows the other woman is looking to chase her own pleasure tonight. Where El had resigned herself to going home alone, she wasn’t so much now.

Mara slips through the crowd, following the way El’s hips sway in her too tight dress. Mara follows because theres a tightly wound thing inside of her aching for some kind of release too. They only get half way to the back exit—the same one Mara had walked into following the sway of a different kind of hips—before they’re stopped dead in their tracks.

Pamela, the beautifully deadly vampire before, flashes before them and causes El’ and all her long legged gorgeousness to jerk back in surprise.

“And where do you think you’re off to?” the vampire asks with a lazy kind of stretch to her lips that couldn’t really be called a smile of any kind.

Despite the fact that the vampires eyes aren’t on her at all, Mara knows the bitch is talking to her, “What the fuck is it to you?”

“Hmmm,” Pamela hums, light and delicate, a rumble at the back of her throat as her green eyes shined like a snake spotting prey, “Your master has requested your presence tonight. You leave only when he’s allowed it.”

With her lips in a snarl, Mara drops the hand entwined with hers and steps before El and all her towering height. Straightening the lines of her shoulders, jutting her chin out in defiance, Mara bites out, “Wanna bet?”

This time around, the smile that stretches over Pamela’s lips is far more genuine but less human. Bloodshed hangs on the bow of her crimson colored lips. Danger and death swirl in the gleam of her pearly white fangs as she crossed her arms over her chest and simply said:

“Far be it from me to try to block anybodies cock, but you cannot leave.”

And before Mara can kick up a decent enough fuss, Pamela locks her gaze with El and begins to speak:

“Sorry darling, but tonight you’re going home.”

Reluctance, something like indignation too, sits heavy on El’s mind. It taints her thoughts as she opens her mouth to say, “Excuse me?”

Rolling her eyes, Pamela heaves out a heavy put upon sigh and drawls, “You’re excused.”

And like she was shooing away an especially pesky fly, Pamela pushes open the back door and tosses El out. The door slams before Mara can even bother to work out to say anything. She stares wide eyed at the closed door and then at the vampire before. For a long while, she says nothing, just stares. But then anger floods her. It licks it’s way up her chest till she feels like she’s burning up from it.

Gritting her teeth tight, Mara spins on her heel and marches her ass back over to the fucker on the throne.

This time around she weaves through nothing. She pushes and flings people out of her way as she goes. Her anger making it so she doesn’t think twice about the people that go tumbling. When she’s at the steps of the throne this time around she doesn’t stop at the foot of it. She stomps her way up them until she’s standing square in front of the asshole who’s got her chained to him.

“I gotta ask you when I can fucking leave?!” Mara demands through a snarl and a growl.

Smiling an impossibly smug as shit smirk, Mr. Northman turns to her and nods his head just so as he announced, “Yes.”

Burning from the inside out, Mara pulls a ragged breath through her mouth and glares with everything she has in her at that impossibly beautiful face. A face that was built to break kingdoms. A face that was likely to inspire the best of art all around the world. A face that could makes angel’s fucking weep. A face that took in all of the rage sitting on Mara’s own and smirked.

For all that Mr. Northman was a fucking asshole, he looked—in that moment—as if he welcomed whatever rage Mara was willing to spill at his feet. He looked almost as if he were eager for it. There’s a hunger in his swirling ocean blue eyes. Raging just as much as Mara’s was. Burning with just as much intensity Mara was running with.

In that moment, Mara thinks, she see’s something hunger in it’s purest forms. Raw and dangerous. A hunger that was just as ravenous as her own. A hunger that said if she wasn’t too careful, it’d swallow her whole and leave nothing behind.

And…Mara wildly thinks for one hot second, it looked kind of like lust too. A lust for something only Mr. Northman could ever accurately name. It should frighten her. It should send her running, that look. But it doesn’t. Instead it makes her heart thump ugly and mean against her rib bones until she is left breathless and winded. Instead that look makes the tightness in her belly, that pulsing throb between her legs, kick up as if it had never been forgotten.

That’s dangerous, Mara thinks— ** _knows_**. Because this was a fucking vampire. One that had her under pinned down in some bullshit arrangement there was no getting out of. It’s dangerous because Mara can’t afford to cross any kind of lines with the dead fucker. It’s dangerous because Mara knows, if she were to chase that look in Mr. Northman’s eyes, she wouldn’t come out in one piece. She’d be spit out warped, stretched and chipped in ways she won’t be able to name.

For all that she aches for it, Mara knows it’s a shitty idea in the making.

There’s a line in a sand here, that Mara’s drawn out with the heel of her foot from the get. A line she knows she can’t afford to toe no matter how much the otherness in her begs her to. It’s a line that she knows probably won’t ever be backtracked and reset. There’s a line and Mara had drawn it when she’d requested all that she had from him.

Her conditions. She’s can’t cross them no matter how hungry that look makes her.

So taking a reluctant step back, she drags her hand through her hair and bites out, “This is _bullshit_.”

“ _Maybe_ ,” Mr. Northman muses lazily as he tilted his head but never blinked or removed his eyes from her, “But you are mine now, Mara, and I do what I wish to that which is mine. So pull up a chair, make yourself at home. The night is young.”

Everything in her roars with the need to spit and kick. To fight, to sink her teeth into that pretty face, if only to just spill a little blood for the bullshit she’d being given. But, she says nothing. Her lips twitch into a snarl but nothing slips past her lips. Instead, Mara tsks her tongue and turns to head for the bar. This time around, people go scattering for her and her alone. It makes it easy as all shit to get to the bar on the other side.

Spotting an empty bar stool, she snags it and demands a beer from a skittish little strawberry blonde behind the bar. The blonde—Ginger, by the quick scan of her brain supplies—hands her a beer quickly and doesn’t bother to stick around. It’s only as she’s lighting another smoke that Mara spots the sign on the barback. It reads out ‘No smoking’.

Feeling all kinds of petty, she ashes her cig on just about every inch around her. Just to spite the fucker at her back.

—X—X—X—

It’s long into the night before last call is thrown out. People filter out slow and steady as the overhead lights flicker on and bathe them in harsh reality. The smooth veneer of the welcoming atmosphere of the club vanishes. And the humans are wide awake for the way Vampires seem to want them gone. It doesn’t take long after that for the club to clear of anyone not under Mr. Northman’s employ.

And even then, anyone with a heart beat—minus herself—scampers home.

Twisting around so that her back is firmly leaning on the bar top, Lela lazily drinks from her beer and smokes. Her eyes roam over the gathered whole of the club. What she finds is thirty or so vampires. All of them flashing stares at her and then over to the dead asshole still seated on his fucking throne.

Seeing how this is her first time being dropped in a literal sea of undead, Mara is somewhat unsettled. She’s never seen more than a handful of vampires in any given space and time. Even when the club was in it’s full upswing, there hadn’t been this many of them here. She’s half curious when they arrived and entirely concerned as to why they were here now.

“Mara,” Mr. Northman calls out her name in the dead silence. His face is entirely void of any real emotions as he does so. But his eyes are hard as he stares at her from across the way.

There’s a hardness there that hadn’t been there before. Where just hours ago there had been an open invitation of the kind of bullshit she seemed to be built with, there wasn’t so much now. Now he looked like what her mother had been convinced he was: a king. A king calling to a peasant and daring her to step one toe out of lie so he could slice it off.

And Mara’s all kinds of things, but she isn’t that fucking stupid.

Heaving a sigh, she slips her smoking cig between her lips and drags her ass off the bar stool. Deliberately slow, she walks over to the man. Every line of her body speaks to her clear reluctance to be here. When she’s back at those steps, she pauses half a step beside Pamela. But when it’s clear Mr. Northman wants her at his throne and not his steps she continues on. She drags her feet until she stands before his massively booted feet. Staring at him expectantly, she flicks her ashes upon his boots.

For all that Mara’s never been all that smart on paper, she knows well enough how to read a fucking room. Right now, sitting heavy in the air, is something dangerous, severe and meaningful. It’s in the way Mr. Northman looks at her and refuses to sway. It’s in the way none of the vampires around her have spoken. It’s in the way they watch her too. This was something…important. Though what the fuck that was, Mara didn’t have a fucking clue.

Carefully slow, Mr. Northman pulls himself forward and holds out an open hand, palm up. With glittering blue eyes, he crooks his finger for her to come closer. And despite how much it burns her, Mara knows now isn’t the kind of time to start denying the bitch anything. So she draws closer too until she’s half on top of the asshole.

Grabbing hold of the beer in her left hand, Mr. Northman places it on the arm rest of his throne. His eyes are locked with hers as he slips his hands onto her body. They move gently upon her—barely a ghost of a touch—as they slipped her leather jacket off her body and dropped it down onto the floor. Her torn shirt, which had been completely undone by a different darker far more feminine pair of hands a long time ago, follows suit.

It’s only when she’s standing in her black lace bra does Mara grow some kind of unsettled. She’s never been much of a prude, or shy, she’s always been a realist. Her body wasn’t built to inspire lust or fever dreams. She’s modest, at best, where it counted. But she’s still managed to get by. So her being half nude in a crowd’s never bothered her. She’s fought enough fights that it never bothers her like it might have once upon a time.

What’s got her feeling any kind of way is that fact that she’s half nude in a club full of undead vampires. It’d unsettled anyone, Mara thinks, because she’s not entirely sure what the fuck is going on.

When chilled hands meet her skin, Mara half jerks back. They land on her upper arms, big and strong, they make her feel entirely too small. Caught again like a sparrow in the jaws of a wolf. His left hand, work rough, skims up until it grips the nape of her neck, her heart thumps just a bit harder. Caution and something like anticipation make it run a little harder than it should. His right hand splays wide in the space between her shoulder blades. It drags her ever closer like the fucker cannot be bothered to move any further out of his seat.

With a firm pull, Mara nearly falls upon the mammoth sized man. Her knee jerks out and catches on the throne seat, square between the vampires legs and just shy of his dick. Growling low in her throat, Mara glares at the man before pulling her smoke out of her lips to rest in her right hand. That beautiful face of his is impassive but his eyes are bright again. They burn like blue fire with that hungry look of his. Swirling deeper than Mara’s sure eyes can go. They threaten her—fucking wordlessly—of all the danger the man is capable of. But damn if it isn’t a pretty sight to behold. So Mara’s tongue stays dead and quiet behind her teeth.

The hand Northman’s got on her neck slips up until it tangles into the lazy bun Mara’s got on. His fingers grip themselves in a lazy fist, barely pulling, just shy of gentle, only not. With that grip of his he forces her head to tilt to the side. Wordlessly, he pulls her closer and drags his nose over her neck. Pulling deep lungfuls through his nose, he exhales across her sweat chilled skin. The cool air raises chills as it goes. A shudder ripples down her spine that is completely involuntary.

When his tongue slips out of his pale pink lips and runs across her flesh, Mara’s hand flashes out to grip his naked shoulder. Her grip is tight, both a threat and something else. In the dead silence, she can hear when his fangs slip out with a blood chilling ‘ _shlinck_ ’.

Without warning, his fangs sink into the side of her neck. The smoke pinched in her hand goes tumbling as she gripped his thick neck. Pain flares bright hot and then down into a slow burn. Those fangs of his pierce her flesh like the sharpest of knives and a precision surgical steel dreams about. And like the spill of a broken dam, her blood floods outward. Northman drinks it down like he’s parched for it. A fine kind of rumble echoes in his chest that Mara can feel beneath the hand she’s got on him. He drinks from her, heavy and deep pulls, like he can’t get enough of it. Like he can never get enough of it even if it was a wild rushing river.

Something like pulsing resentment makes her want to dig the knee she’s got between his legs onto his dick. But she’s pretty sure the fucker would enjoy that. So all she’s left with is sinking her nails into him in a sad attempt to draw blood of her own. That otherness in her blood spits with wild rage. It coils tight and springs outward at the knowledge that she is being fed upon like it is some great grand show.

The dark knowledge that she is a thing owned and being claimed in public makes her want to rip into flesh too. To maim and reap her own kind of vengeance.

But she keeps herself still. Mara knows this is something that she has no choice in. She does not belong to herself anymore. Half sprawled on a vampires lap, an audience of vampires at her back, rankles her in a way she’s never known.

It could be minutes or hours, she doesn’t know, but time moves slow. It’s only when her head begins to grow woozy, her eyes dropping to half lidded, that Northman pulls away. When she see’s his face—made brilliant and high def once more—his lips are stained red with her blood. His eyes are glittering and dangerous as he takes in the anger on her face. Grinning wide and unabashed, fangs still out, Mr. Northman huskily whispers:

“Delicious, **_my_** beautiful Mara.”

And as much as she hates every inch of that statement, Mara finds something swirls in dark pleasure over it. That the beast in him hungers for the thing in her. Something aches, bone deep, to spill more of her blood out so that he may lap at it to his hearts content. But she banks the feeling almost immediately. When she’s released, Mara pulls away almost instantly. Half braining herself in the process, she scoops up her clothes and drops heavy at the top steps. She can feel the lazy slow spill of her blood running down her neck to spill over her chest where her bite hasn’t closed at all. With hazy eyes, Mara stares out at the gathered mass of vampires and takes note that more have arrived.

Her little mind game may not be worth dick against the undead, but Mara doesn’t need it to know what’s running on their heads. She can read it clear enough on their faces. Some of them are fanged out as they stare at her and pant. Others are barely keeping themselves pinned in place.

For a half second, Mara genuinely worries about whether Mr. Northman would keep his word. the promise he’d given to her on their first night about nothing been passed around looking flimsy as shit now. But before she can pull her ass up onto her two feet, Mr. Northman calls out to the whole:

“ _Leave_.”

And like demons on the wind, the entire congregation scatters. They flash out of place in blurs her eyes can barely track. As silent as death itself, not even a whisper of their departure rings out. It’d be fascinating if it wasn’t so fucking eerie. Because no matter how the world wanted to look at it through their rose tinted glasses, vampires were predators. Predators that were supernatural and completely unnatural. And their prey—people made of flesh and bone like herself—were what they chased on those too fast and too silent feet of theirs.

Only when they’re alone, does Mara unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth and demand of the vampire at her back, “Wha’tha fuck was that about?”

Pulling himself up to stand, Northman walks down and around her till he is standing before her. And gorgeous he may have looked when Mara had first seen him tonight, but now, now he looked like a god come to life. He shone with all the elegant gleam of a flesh made star. It was captivating and awe inspiring as much as it was fucking infuriating. Because Mara knows it’s because he’s just downed a belly full of her blood to look like that.

“I am simply claiming what is mine for all to see,” Northman tells her easily, his rumbling baritone spilling out of his pink smirking lips, “So they may look all they please but they cannot touch.”

Her face pulling in confusion, Mara glares at the man as she forces herself up onto her swaying two feet. When it doesn’t feel like she’s about to drop back, she spits out, “Fuck you, Mr— _Fucking_ —Northman…”

Whatever else she’s going to say gets cut right the fuck off. Flashing over to her, swallowing up the distance between them like it’s nothing, Mr. Northman stands before her. Looming over her with his immense height and width. He dwarfs her. His right hand flashes out and cups her face and forces her to look up at him. His touch isn’t forceful but it’s firm and does not yield when Mara goes to pull herself free.

With his eyes swirling, Mr. Northman looks down on her. His gaze piercing through whatever it was that made her up. In that heavy weight, Mara grows silent and still. Her anger abating and bleeding out into something she cannot begin to name.

“Eric,” Mr. Northman whispers down onto her as he held her in place.

And if the lusting thoughts before were a line in the sand then this was a wall Mara was seeing go up ten feet into the air. A wall that she knows better than to scale and cross. A wall that she shouldn’t even begin to entertain crossing. It’d muddle things up, she knows. It felt dangerous, as dangerous as walking into a club full of vampires with the blood she’s currently got lazily spilling from the bite on her neck. It’s dangerous that Mr. Northman—Eric—wants her to cross it at all.

But Mara’s always been shit at backing away from a challenge. She’s always toed the lines, rushed head first into things and thought of the consequences only after the fact. So she scales that wall and jumps clear over as she pulled her lips up into a sneer and breathed out:

“Can I leave now, or do I gotta stay until you fucking decide to crawl into your coffin…Eric?”

Grinning like he’s got her right where he wants her, Eric lazily blinks his eyes and pulls his hand away from her face. With a small tilt of his head, he tells her, “You’re free to go now Mara.”

Never being the type to look a gift horse in the mouth, Mara takes that for what it is. Half turning to scoop up her jacket, Mara abandons her shirt and half stomps her way out of the club. She doesn’t bother to look anyone of them in the eye as she goes. She just walks out the back exit and rushes into her wrangler. She puts Fangtasia in her rear view mirror as fast as humanly possible and heads back to her empty home.

And despite how hard she tries, the phantom feel of Eric’s touch on her body follows her as she goes. His touch burned into every inch he touched. the mere memory of his lips against her neck, his tongue upon her neck, his hand tangled in her hair, gripping her neck and then cupping her face was enough to make her heart hammer tight in her chest. Want and need grip her belly tight as a familiar throb echoes between her legs.

Gripping the wheel tight, Mara resolves to never cross the fucking line in the sand. Getting in deeper with that fucker was something she couldn’t fucking afford.

Not if she was ever going to survive this bullshit and make it out in one piece.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, went nowhere. But I kinda of liked this chapter and where it eventually went towards the end. 
> 
> I know where all here for the romance and the smut, but this is seriously becoming a low burning thing here guys. From the vibe I'm getting, both Mara and Eric are totally digging each other pretty hard. 
> 
> So I hope you guys liked it.   
> Thoughts, suggestions, inquires--all welcomed!!!  
> Hope you guys enjoyed!!!


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